■  '■■''v-".>^^Vc^'^^':■;^^v^^S;  ' 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


BV  4812  .C9  1882  ^ 

^,  Cuyler,  Theodore  L.  1822- 
1909. 
God's  light  on  dark  clouds 

Shelf. ^y^,r.uo, 


GOD'S    LIGHT 


ON 


DARK     CLOUDS. 


BY 


THEODORE   L.   CUYLER, 

PASTOR  OF  LAFAYETTE  AVENUE  CHURCH,   BROOKLYN. 


SrCOND   EDITION. 


NEW  YORK: 

ROBERT  CARTER  AND   BROTHERS, 

530  Broadway. 


Copyright,  1882, 
By  Robert  Carter  and  Brothers. 


University  Press; 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


JAN  181 
LOQi 


'  •»ii'\ivv%r;vv 


TO 

THE    DESPONDING 

AND 

THE    BEREAVED, 
THESE    WORDS    OF    SYMPATHY  AND   CHEER 


CONTENTS. 


PAGH 

God's  Light  on  Dark  Clouds    ....;.  7 

Burning  the  Barley-field 15 

Weeping  and  Working 24 

Short  Views 29 

Flowers  from  the  Tomb  of  Jesus     ....  37 

Trusting  God  in  the  Dark 43 

God's  School,  and  its  Lessons 51 

God's  Unfoldings 59 

Christ  Shepherding  his  Flock 68 

The  Everlasting  Arms 77 

Words  for  the  Weary 85 

The  Lord  Reigneth 93 

Up  to  the  Hills loi 

Right  Seeing no 

The  Lord  our  Strength 117 

A  Constant  Salvation 126 


6  CONTENTS. 

Healthy  and  Happy 134 

The  Angels  of  the  Sepulchre 141 

The  Night-Lodging  and  the  Day-dawn       .  147 

Our  Two  Homes 155 

Asleep  in  Jesus 163 

An  Autumn  Hour  in  Greenwood     ....  172 


0  E  TOIT 


^ 


GOD'S   LIGHT  ON  DARK  CLOUDS. 


TO-DAY  as  I  sit  in  my  lonely  room, 
this  passage  of  God's  Word  flies  in 
like  a  white  dove  through  the  window: 
**And  now  men  see  not  the  bright  light 
which  is  in  the  clouds ;  but  the  wind  pass- 
eth  and  cleanseth  [or  cleareth]  them."  To 
my  weak  vision,  dimmed  with  tears,  the 
cloud  is  exceeding  dark,  but  through  it 
stream  some  rays  from  the  infinite  love 
that  fills  the  Throne  with  an  exceeding  and 
eternal  brightness  of  glory.  By  and  by 
we  may  get  above  and  behind  that  cloud 
into  the  overwhelming  light.  We  shall 
not  need  comfort  then ;  we  want  it  now. 
And  for  our  present  consolation  God  lets 


8  GOD'S  LIGHT  ON  DARK  CLOUDS, 

through    the   clouds    some    clear,   strong, 
distinct  rays  of  love  and  gladness. 

One  truth  that  beams  in  through  the  va- 
pors is  this :  God  not  only  reigns,  but  He 
governs  His  world  by  a  most  beautiful  law 
of  compensations.  He  setteth  one  thing, 
over  against  another.  Faith  loves  to  study 
the  illustrations  of  this  law,  notes  them  in 
her  diary,  and  rears  her  pillars  of  praise 
for  every  fresh  discovery.  I  have  noticed 
that  the  deaf  often  have  an  unusual  quick- 
ness of  eyesight ;  the  blind  are  often  gifted 
with  an  increased  capacity  for  hearing ;  and 
sometimes  when  the  eye  is  darkened  and 
the  ear  is  closed,  the  sense  of  touch  be- 
comes so  exquisite  that  we  are  able  to  con- 
verse with  the  sufferer  through  that  sense 
alone.  This  law  explains  why  God  puts  so 
many  of  His  people  under  a  sharp  regimen 
of  hardship  and  burden-bearing  in  order 
that  they  may  be  sinewed  into  strength; 
why  a  Joseph  must  be  shut  into  a  prison  in 
order  that  he  may  be  trained  for  a  palace 


GOD'S  LIGHT  ON  DARK  CLOUDS.  9 

and  for  the  premiership  of  the  kingdom. 
Outside  of  the  Damascus  Gate  I  saw  the 
spot  where  Stephen  was  stoned  into  a  cruel 
death ;  but  that  martyr  blood  was  not  only 
the  "  seed  of  the  Church,"  but  the  first 
germ  of  conviction  in  the  heart  of  Saul  of 
Tarsus.  This  law  explains  the  reason  why 
God  often  sweeps  away  a  Christian's  pos- 
sessions in  order  that  he  may  become  rich 
in  faith,  and  why  He  dashes  many  persons 
off  the  track  of  prosperity,  where  they  were 
running  at  fifty  miles  the  hour,  in  order 
that  their  pride  might  be  crushed,  and  that 
they  might  seek  the  safer  track  of  humility 
and  holy  living.  What  a  wondrous  com- 
pensation our  bereaved  nation  is  receiving 
for  the  loss  of  him  who  was  laid  the  other 
day  in  his  tomb  by  the  lakeside !  That 
cloud  is  already  raining  blessings,  and 
richer  showers  may  be  yet  to  come.  God's 
people  are  never  so  exalted  as  when  they 
art  brought  low,  never  so  enriched  as  when 
they  are   emptied,  never   so    advanced   as 


lO         GOD'S  LIGHT  ON  DARK  CLOUDS. 

when  they  are  set  back  by  adversity,  never 
so  near  the  crown  as  when  under  the  cross. 
One  of  the  sweetest  enjoyments  of  heaven 
will  be  to  review  our  own  experiences 
under  this  law  of  compensations,  and  to  see, 
how  often  affliction  worked  out  for  us  the 
exceeding  weight  of  glory. 

There  is  a  great  want  in  all  God's  peo- 
ple who  have  never  had  the  education  of 
sharp  trial.  There  are  so  many  graces 
that  can  only  be  pricked  into  us  by  the 
.puncture  of  suffering,  and  so  many  lessons 
that  can  only  be  learned  through  tears, 
that  when  God  leaves  a  Christian  without 
any  trials,  He  really  leaves  him  to  a  ter- 
rible danger.  His  heart,  unploughed  by 
discipline,  will  be  very  apt  to  run  to  the 
tares  of  selfishness,  and  worldliness,  and 
pride.  In  a  musical  instrument  there 
are  some  keys  that  must  be  touched  in 
order  to  evoke  its  fullest  melodies;  God 
is  a  wonderful  organist,  who  knows  just 
what  heart-chord  to  strike.     In  the  Black 


X}OnS  LIGHT  ON  DARK  CLOUDS.         II 

Forest  of  Germany  a  baron  built  a  castle 
with  two  lofty  towers.  From  one  tower 
to  the  other  he  stretched  several  wires, 
which  in  calm  weather  were  motionless  and 
silent.  When  the  wind  began  to  blow,  the 
wires  began  to  play  like  an  iEolian  harp 
in  the  window.  As  the  wind  rose  into  a 
fierce  gale,  the  old  baron  sat  in  his  cas- 
tle and  heard  his  mighty  hurricane-harp 
playing  grandly  over  the  battlements.  So, 
while  the  weather  is  calm  and  the  skies 
clear,  a  great  many  of  the  emotions  of  a 
Christian's  heart  are  silent.  As  soon  as 
the  wind  of  adversity  smites  the  chords, 
the  heart  begins  to  play;  and  when  God 
sends  a  hurricane  of  terrible  trial  you  will 
hear  strains  of  submission  and  faith,  and 
even  of  sublime  confidence  and  holy  exulta- 
tion, which  could  never  have  been  heard  in 
the  calm  hours  of  prosperity.  Oh,  breth- 
ren, let  the  winds  smite  us,  if  they  only 
make  the  spices  flow;  let  us  not  shrink 
from  the  deepest  trial,  if  at  midnight  we 
can  only  sing  praises  to  God ! 


12        GOD'S  LIGHT  ON  DARK  CLOUDS. 

If  we  want  to  know  what  clouds  of  afflic- 
tion mean  and  what  they  are  sent  for,  we 
must  not  flee  away  from  them  in  fright  with 
closed  ears  and  bandaged  eyes.  Fleeing 
from  the  cloud  is  fleeing  from  the  Divine 
love  that  is  behind  the  cloud.  In  one  of 
the  German  picture-galleries  is  a  painting 
called  "  Cloudland  " ;  it  hangs  at  the  end 
of  a  long  gallery,  and  at  first  sight  it  looks 
like  a  huge  repulsive  daub  of  confused 
color,  without  form  or  comeliness.  As  you 
walk  towards  it  the  picture  begins  to  take 
shape ;  it  proves  to  be  a  mass  of  exquisite 
little  cherub  faces,  like  those  at  the  head 
of  the  canvas  in  Raphael's  "  Madonna  San 
Sisto."  If  you  come  close  to  the  picture, 
you  see  only  an  innumerable  company  of 
little  angels  and  cherubim !  How  often 
the  soul  that  is  frightened  by  trial  sees  noth- 
ing but  a  confused  and  repulsive  mass  of 
broken  expectations  and  crushed  hopes  ! 
But  if  that  soul,  instead  of  fleeing  away  into 
unbelief  and  despair,  would  only  draw  up 


GOD'S  LIGHT  ON  DARK  CLOUDS.         1 3 

near  to  God,  it  would  soon  discover  that 
the  cloud  was  full  of  angels  of  mercy.  In 
one  cherub-face  it  would  see  "  Whom  I 
love  I  chasten."  Another  angel  would  say, 
"All  things  work  together  for  good  to 
them  that  love  God."  In  still  another 
sweet  face  the  heavenly  words  are  coming 
forth,  "  Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled ; 
believe  also  in  Me.  In  my  Father's  house 
are  many  mansions.  Where  I  am  there 
shall  ye  be  also." 

To-day  my  lonely  room  is  vocal  with  such 
heavenly  utterances.  God's  ways  are  not 
my  ways,  but  they  are  infinitely  better.  The 
cloud  is  not  so  dense  but  love-rays  shine 
through.  In  time  the  revealing  ''  winds  shall 
clear  "  away  the  dark  and  dreadful  mystery. 
Kind  words  of  sympathy  steal  into  the 
shadowed  room  of  suffering.  If  Christ 
does  not  come  in  visible  form  to  our  Beth- 
anys,  He  sends  His  faithful  servants  and 
handmaidens  with  words  of  warm,  tender 
condolence.     The    fourteenth    chapter   of 


14         GOD'S  LIGHT  ON  DARK  CLOUDS. 

John  never  gleams  with  such  a  celestial 
brightness  as  when  we  read  it  under  the 
cloud.  No  cloud  can  be  big  enough  to 
shut  out  heaven  if  we  keep  the  eye  towards 
the  Throne.  And  when  we  reach  heaven 
and  see  the  cloud  from  God's  side,  it  will 
be  blazing  and  beaming  with  the  illumina- 
tions of  His  love.  The  Lamb  which  is  in 
the  midst  of  the  throne  shall  be  our  Shep- 
herd, and  shall  guide  us  to  the  fountains  of 
waters  of  life,  and  God  shall  wipe  away 
every  tear  from  our  eyes. 

Brooklyn,  Oct.  6,  1881. 


BURNING  THE  BARLEY-FIELD. 


A  GREAT  many  precious  spiritual  truths 
lie  concealed  under  the  out-of-the-way 
passages  of  God's  Word,  like  Wordsworth's 

"  violet  by  a  mossy  stone, 
Half  hidden  from  the  eye." 

s 

If  we  turn  up  a  certain  verse  in  the  four- 
teenth chapter  of  the  Second  Book  of 
Samuel,  we  shall  find  such  a  truth  hidden 
under  a  historical  incident.  The  incident 
is  on  this  wise.  Absalom,  the  artful  aspir- 
ant to  his  father's  throne,  wishes  to  have 
an  interview  with  Joab,  the  field  marshal 
of  David's  army.  He  sends  for  Joab  to 
come  to  him,  but  Joab  refuses.  Finding 
that  the  obstinate  old  soldier  pays  no  heed 


l6  BURNING   THE  BARLEY-FIELD. 

to  his  urgent  request,  he  practises  a  strata- 
gem. He  says  to  one  of  his  servants :  *'  See  ! 
Joab's  field  is  next  to  mine,  and  he  hath 
barley  there.  Go  and  set  it  on  fire  !  "  And 
Absalom's  servants  set  the  field  on  fire. 
Then  Joab  arose  and  came  to  Absalom. 

Now,  just  as  the  shrewd  young  prince 
dealt  with  Joab  in  order  to  bring  him  unto 
him,  so  God  employs  a  regimen  of  disci- 
pline very  often  in  order  to  bring  waj^vard 
hearts  to  himself.  Many  a  reader  of  this 
article  may  have  had  his  barley-field  set  on 
fire ;  there  are  some  even  now  whose  fields 
are  wrapped  in  flames  or  are  covered  with 
the  ashes  of  extinguished  hopes.  With 
backsliders  this  method  is  often  God's  last 
resort.  He  sees  that  the  wayward  wander- 
ers care  more  for  their  earthly  possessions 
than  they  do  for  his  honor  or  his  service. 
So  he  touches  them  in  the  tenderest  spot, 
and  sweeps  away  the  objects  they  love  too 
well.  They  have  become  idolaters,  and  he 
sternly  dashes  their  idols  to  atoms. 


BURNING    THE  BARLEY-FIELD.  I J 

There  was  a  time  when  our  nation  had 
shamefully  backslidden  from  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  our  Declaration  of 
Independence.  The  value  of  cotton  crops 
outweighed  the  value  of  liberty.  The  right- 
eous God  saw  that  we  cared  more  for  the 
perpetuity  of  our  Union  and  our  prosperity 
than  we  did  for  the  rights  of  four  millions 
of  his  children.  But  when  the  first  flash 
of  a  national  conflagration  lighted  up  the 
Southern  sky,  then  millions  of  affrighted 
voices  began  to  cry  out,  "  Why  is  our 
magnificent  Union  given  to  the  flames?" 
We  could  sleep  while  God's  law  of  right 
was  trampled  under  foot;  but  when  the 
national  peace  and  power  and  pride  were 
trodden  down  by  the  same  remorseless 
heel,  we  awoke,  as  a  man  awakes  at  the 
cry  of  "  fire "  under  his  own  roof-tree. 
God  saw  what  we  prized  most,  and  He 
touched  that. 

In  like  manner,  many  an  individual  sin- 
ner finds  his  way  to  Christ  by  the  light  of 


1 8  BURNING   THE  BARLEY-FIELD, 

a  burning  barley-field.  Sometimes  the 
awakening  comes  in  the  shape  of  a  bodily 
chastisement.  The  impenitent  heart  has 
never  been  moved  by  sermons  and  never 
been  brought  to  repentance  by  any  sense 
of  gratitude  for  God's  mercies.  So  the  All- 
wise  One  sends  a  sharp  attack  of  sickness, 
in  order  to  reach  the  diseased  and  hardened 
heart.  The  sinner  is  laid  on  his  back.  He 
is  brought  to  the  very  verge  of  eternity. 
As  a  past  life  of  transgression  rises  before 
his  conscience,  and  the  terrors  of  a  wrath  to 
come  seize  upon  him,  he  cries  out,  "  God, 
be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner !  "  When  he 
recovers  his  health,  and  goes  back  into  a 
world  that  looks  very  different  to  him  now, 
his  grateful  song  is,  "  It  was  good  for  me  to 
have  been  afflicted,  for  I  had  gone  astray ; 
my  feet  had  well  nigh  slipped."  I  honestly 
believe  that  many  a  sick-bed  has  delivered 
the  sufferer  from  a  bed  in  perdition.  Pain 
often  drives  to  prayer.  The  door  that  shuts 
a  man  out  from  the  world  shuts  him  in  to 


BURNING   THE  BARLEY-FIELD.  19 

reflection,  and  finally  into  the  ark  of  safety. 
"  There  it  is,"  said  a  young  man,  as  he 
pointed  to  a  diseased  limb,  which  was  eat- 
ing away  his  life ;  *'  and  a  precious  limb  it 
has  been  to  me.  It  took  me  away  from  a 
career  of  folly.  It  brought  me  to  myself,  * 
and  to  this  room  of  trial,  where  I  have  found 
Christ.  I  think  it  has  brought  me  a  great 
way  on  the  road  to  heaven."  It  was  the 
testimony  of  a  Christian  who  had  lost  his 
eyesight,  after  a  long  confinement  to  a  dark 
room,  *'  I  could  never  see  Jesus  until  I 
became  bHnd." 

We  sometimes  wonder  why  God  takes 
one  of  his  ministers  out  of  the  pulpit  and 
lays  him  on  a  bed  of  dangerous  illness.  It 
is  to  give  the  man  a  look  over  the  verge.  He 
gets  shorter  views  of  life  and  of  eternity. 
Three  weeks  on  the  couch  of  pain  and  peril 
teach  him  some  things  which  he  never 
learned  in  three  years  at  a  theological 
seminary.  Sharp  bodily  affliction,  even  if 
it  does  not  endanger  life,  is  often  a  whole- 


20  BURNING   THE  BARLEY-FIELD. 

some  process.  Paul's  thorn  in  the  flesh, 
Robert  Hall's  excruciating  pains,  and  Rich- 
ard Baxter's  physical  sufferings  were  a  very 
expensive  part  of  their  education ;  but  they 
graduated  with  higher  honor  and  a  brighter 
crown.  Fiery  trials  make  golden  Chris- 
tians. When  the  balsam-trees  in  God's 
garden  are  cut  deep  with  the  knife,  they 
emit  the  sweetest  gums. 

During  the  last  five  years  a  great  many 
barley-fields  have  been  consumed.    Brother 

A had  his  fortune  swept  away  ia  the 

commerciahconflagration  of  1873;  but  his 
heavenly  hope  was  locked  up  in  what  was 
more  fire-proof  than  any  iron  safe,  and  his 
Christian  character  came  out  like  pure  gold 
from  the  flames.  One  of  the  most  benevo- 
lent and  useful  Christian  merchants  in 
America  has  lately  seen  the  flames  of  ruin 
go  through  his  field  of  barley,  and  the  earn- 
ings of  an  honest  life  are  ashes  !  He  has  an 
inheritance  left  yet  which  the  Rothschilds 
could  not  buy;    and  the  very  loss  of  his 


BURNING   THE  BARLEY-FIELD.  21 

stocks  and  "  securities  "  has  led  him  to  in- 
ventory afresh  the  blessed  treasures  which 
he  has  been  laying  up  in  heaven.  So,  from 
being  a  bankrupt,  he  finds  that  his  best 
investments  are  untouched ;  and  there  has 
been  no  depreciation  in  his  real  estate,  which 
lies  very  near  to  the  everlasting  throne. 

God  often  sees  that  a  career  of  unbroken 
worldly  prosperity  is  becoming  very  fatal 
to  the  soul.  Therefore  he  puts  the  torch  to 
the  barley-field.  Not  only  are  the  impen- 
^itent  thus  dealt  with,  to  bring  them  to 
consider  their  ways,  but  his  own  children 
are  often  put  through  a  process  which  is 
marvellously  improving  to  their  graces,  for 
a  career  of  rapid  success  is  seldom  health- 
ful to  piety.  Very  few  even  of  Christ's 
choice  ones  can  travel  life's  railway  with 
perfect  safety  at  forty  miles  an  hour.  The 
heated  axle  is  very  apt  to  snap,  or  else  the 
engine  flies  the  track  of  conformity  to  God 
and  goes  off  the  embankment. 

Prosperity  brings  out  only  a  few  of  a 


22  BURNING   THE  BARLEY-FIELD. 

good  man's  graces ;  it  often  brings  out  a 
great  many  secret  lusts,  and  no  little  pride, 
and  selfishness  and  forgetfulness  of  the 
Master.  When  a  favorable  wind  strikes  a 
vessel  '*  right  aft,"  it  only  fills  a  portion  of 
the  sails ;  when  it  veers  round  and  strikes 
it  "  on  the  beam,"  then  every  inch  of  can- 
vas is  reached.  Good  reader,  if  the  Lord 
is  so  shifting  the  winds  that  they  reach  thy 
undeveloped  graces  of  humility,  and  faith, 
and  patience,  and  unselfish  love,  do  not  be 
alarmed.  He  does  not  mean  to  swamp 
thee,  or  send  thee  on  a  lee  shore ;  he  only 
intends  to  bring  thee  into  a  "  better  trim  " 
and  give  thee  a  more  abundant  entrance 
into  the  desired  haven. 

Count  up^  all  the  worldly  losses  you  have 
had,  and  see  if  you  are  not  the  gainer,  if 
these  losses  have  but  sent  you  closer  to 
your  Saviour.  You  have  less  money,  per- 
haps, but  more  enjoyment  of  the  treasures 
you  found  at  the  cross.  You  are  richer 
toward  God.     Perhaps  there  is  a  child  the 


BURNING    THE  BARLEY-FIELD.  23 

less  in  that  crib  now  empty,  but  there  is 
a  child  the  more  in  glory ;  and  when  the 
Shepherd  took  your  lamb  He  drew  you 
nearer  to  Him  and  to  the  fold  on  high.  Our 
loving  God  has  a  purpose  in  every  trial. 
If  any  heart-broken  reader  of  these  lines 
is  crying  out,  like  Joab,  "  Wherefore  hast 
thou  set  my  field  on  fire?"  I  beseech  thee 
not  to  flee  away  from  God  in  petulant 
despair.  He  is  only  burning  up  thy  bar- 
ley to  bring  thee  closer  to  Himself.  Let 
the  flames  light  thee  to  the  mercy-seat. 
The  promises  will  read  the  brighter.  It 
is  better  to  lose  the  barley  than  to  lose  the 
blessing. 


WEEPING  AND  WORKING. 


'T^HE  smallest  verse  in  the  Bible  is  one 
■^  of  the  largest  and  deepest  in  its 
heavenly  pathos,  yesus  wept.  What  mys- 
terious meanings  may  have  lain  behind 
those  tears,  no  one  need  try  to  fathom ;  but, 
for  one,  I  prefer  to  see  in  them  the  honest 
expression  of  grief  for  a  friend  who  was 
dead,  and  of  sympathy  for  two  heart-broken 
women.  Christ's  power  displayed  at  that 
sepulchre  overwhelms  me ;  it  was  the 
power  of  a  God.  But  His  pity  touches 
me  most  tenderly;  it  was  the  pity  of  a 
man.  Those  moistened  eyes  are  my  Elder 
Brother's.  The  sympathy  that  walked 
twenty  miles  to  Bethany,  that  drew  Him 
to  those  desolate  women,  that  started  the 


WEEPING  AND    WORKING.  25 

tears  down  His  cheeks  and  choked  His 
voice  with  emotion,  —  that  sympathy  Hnks 
us  to  Him  as  the  sharer  and  the  bearer 
of  our  own  sorrows.  There  is  something 
vicarious  in  those  tears,  as  there  is  in  the 
precious  blood  shed  on  the  cross  a  few 
days  afterwards.  His  love  seems  to  "  in- 
sert itself  vicariously  right  into  our  sor- 
rows," and  He  takes  the  burden  right  into 
His  own  heart. 

But  it  was  a  practical  sympathy.  Had 
our  Lord  come  to  Bethany  and  taken  the 
two  bereaved  sisters  into  their  guest- 
chamber  and  had-  a  "  good  cry  "  with  them, 
and  then  gone  away  and  left  Lazarus  in 
his  grave  and  them  in  their  grief,  it  would 
have  been  all  that  our  neighbors  can  do 
for  us  when  we  are  in  a  house  of  bereave- 
ment. But  it  would  not  have  been  like 
Jesus.  He  did  not  come  to  Bethany 
simply  to  weep.  He  came  there  to  work 
a  marvellous  miracle  of  love.  He  wept  as 
a  man ;   He  worked  as  the  Lord  of  power 


26  WEEPING  AND    WORKING. 

and  glory.  He  pitied  first,  and  then 
helped.  The  same  love  that  moistened 
His  eyes  moved  His  arm  to  burst  open 
that  tomb  and  bring  the  dead  Lazarus  to 
his  feet.  A  few  days  afterwards  He  wept 
for  sinners,  and  then  wrought  out  salvation 
for  sinners  by  His  own  agonies  on  the  cross. 
Is  there  no  lesson  for  us  in  this?  What  are 
tears  of  sympathy  worth  if  we  refuse  to  lift 
a  finger  to  help  the  suffering  or  to  relieve 
distress?  And  what  a  mockery  it  is  to 
weep  over  the  erring  and  do  nothing  to  save 
them  !  Only  when  we  '*  bear  one  another's 
burdens  "  do  we  *'  fulfil  the  law  of  Christ." 
There  is  another  connection  that  weep- 
ing has  with  working.  "VVe  relieve  our  own 
suffering  hearts  by  turning  the  flood  of  grief 
upon  some  wheel  of  practical  activity.  An 
eminent  minister  of  God  who  was  under  a 
peculiarly  bitter  trial  once  said  to  me,  "  If 
I  could  not  study  and  preach  and  work  to 
the  very  utmost,  I  should  go  crazy."  The 
millstones  grinding  upon  themselves  soon 


WEEPING  AND    WORKING.  2/ 

wear  themselves  away  to  powder.  But 
useful  occupation  is  not  only  a  tonic,  it  is 
a  sedative  to  the  troubled  spirit.  Instead 
of  looking  in  upon  our  own  griefs  until  we 
magnify  them,  we  should  rather  look  at 
the  'sorrows  of  others,  in  order  to  lighten 
and  lessen  them. 

The  poor  fisherman,  in  one  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott's  romances,  says  to  the  lady  who 
comes  to  his  cottage  after  the  death  of  his 
child :  "  You  rich  folk  when  ye  are  in 
trouble  may  sit  wi'  yer  handkercher  to 
yer  een,  but  we  puir  bodies  maun  off  to 
our  work  agen,  even  tho'  our  hearts  are 
thumpin'  like  a  hammer."  If  the  poor  fel- 
low had  only  known  it,  he  was  a  great  deal 
better  off  at  his  honest  work  than  if  he  had 
been  idly  nursing  his  grief  with  the  "  hand- 
kercher to  his  een."  Some  of  the  best 
work  ever  done  for  the  Master  is  wrought  by 
His  servants  when  the  ''hammer"  of  afflic- 
tion is  not  only  beating  away  on  the  heart, 
but  is  breaking   down  selfishness  and  un- 


28  WEEPING  AND    WORKING.      - 

belief.  When  sorrow  is  allowed  to  settle 
in  the  soul,  it  often  turns  the  soul  into  a 
stagnant  fen  of  bitter  waters,  out  of  which 
sprout  the  rank  rushes  of  self-will  and  un- 
belief and  rebellion  against  God.  If  that 
same  sorrow  is  turned  outward  into  cur- 
rents of  sympathy  and  beneficence,  it  be- 
comes a  stream  of  blessings.  A  baptism 
of  trial  is  often  the  best  baptism  for  Christ's 
service.  If  tears  drive  us  to  toil,  then  toil 
will,  in  turn  drive  away  tears,  and  give  us 
new  and  sacred  satisfactions.  When  our 
blessed  Saviour  wept,  it  was  on  the  eve 
of  His  mightiest  works,  once  in  raising 
the  dead,  and  once  in  redeeming  a  dying 
world.  Weeping  and  working  may  even 
blend  profitably  together ;  for  the  chiefest 
of  Christ's  apostles  tells  us  that  during  three 
busy  years  of  his  life  he  ceased  not  to  warn 
perishing  sinners,  night  and  day,  with  tears. 

"  Since  Thou  on  earth  hast  wept. 
And  sorrowed  oft  alone, 
If  I  must  weep  with  Thee, 
My  Lord,  Thy  will  be  done ! " 


SHORT  VIEWS. 


\  MONG  the  manifold  improvements 
-^  ^  in  the  Westminster  Revision,  we  are 
happy  to  find  that  our  Lord's  discourse 
against  sinful  worrying  is  given  in  the  right 
English.  Our  common  version  of  the  clos- 
ing portion  of  the  sixth  chapter  of  Matthew 
has  always  been  very  misleading  to  the 
average  reader.  Christ  never  commanded 
us  to  **  take  no  thought  for  the  morrow"  ; 
such  counsel  would  contradict  common 
sense,  rational  prudence,  and  other  ex- 
plicit commands  in  the  Bible.  What  our 
Lord  so  emphatically  forbade  was  sinful 
anxiety,  or  the  overloading  of  to-day's 
work  with  worry  about  the  day  that  has 
not  yet  come.     The  revisers  have  hit  the 


30  SHORT  VIEWS. 

nail  exactly  on  the  head  by  introducing 
the  word  "  anxious "  into  a  half-dozen 
verses  of  that  portion  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount.  "  Be  ye  not  anxious  for  your 
life  what  ye  shall  eat,"  &c.  *'  Which  of 
you  by  being  anxious  can  add  one  cubit 
to  the  measure  of  his  life?"  This  whole 
remonstrance  against  borrowing  trouble  in 
advance  is  summed  up  in  the  happily 
translated  sentence,  —  "  Be  not  therefore 
anxious  for  the  morrow;  for  the  morrow 
will  be  anxious  for  itself." 

We  may  be  sure  that  our  blessed  Lord 
knew  what  was  in  man  when  He  gave  so 
much  space  in  His  sermon  to  this  one  tor- 
menting sin,  and  repeated  six  times  over 
His  entreaties  to  avoid  it.  Worry  is  not 
only  a  sin  against  God,  it  is  a  sin  against 
ourselves.  It  sometimes  amounts  to  a  slow 
suicide.  Thousands  have  shortened  their 
lives  by  it,  and  millions  have  made  their 
lives  bitter  by  dropping  this  gall  into 
their  souls  every  day.     Honest  work  very 


SHORT  VIEWS.  31 

seldom  hurts  us  ;  it  is  worry  that  kills.  I 
have  a  perfect  right  to  ask  God  for  a 
strength  equal  to  the  day,  but  I  have  no 
right  to  ask  Him  for  one  extra  ounce  of 
strength  for  to-morrow's  burden.  When 
to-morrow  comes,  grace  will  come  with  it, 
and  sufficient  for  the  tasks,  the  trials,  or 
the  troubles.  God  never  has  built  a  Chris- 
tian strong  enough  to  stand  the  strain  oi 
present  duties  and  all  the  tons  of  to-mor- 
row's duties  and  sufferings  piled  upon  the 
top  of  them.  Paul  himself  would  have 
broken  down. 

There  is  only  one  practical  remedy  for 
this  deadly  sin  of  anxiety,  and  that  is  to 
take  short  views.  Faith  is  content  to  live 
*'  from  hand  to  mouth,"  enjoying  each 
blessing  from  God  as  it  comes.  This  per- 
verse spirit  of  worry  runs  off  and  gathers 
some  anticipated  troubles  and  throws  them 
into  the  cup  of  mercies  and  turns  them 
to  vinegar.  A  bereaved  parent  sits  down 
by  the  new-made  grave  of  a  beloved  child 


32  SHORT  VIEWS. 

and  sorrowfully  says  to  herself,  "  Well,  I 
have  only  one  more  left,  and  one  of  these 
days  he  may  go  off  to  live  in  a  home  of 
his  own,  or  he  may  be  taken  away ;  and  if 
he  dies,  my  house  will  be  desolate  and 
my  heart  utterly  broken."  Now  who  gave^ 
that  weeping  mother  permission  to  use 
that  word  "if"  ?  Is  not  her  trial  sore 
enough  now  without  overloading  it  with 
an  imaginary  trial?  And  if  her  strength 
breaks  down,  it  will  be  simply  because  she 
is  not  satisfied  with  letting  God  afflict  her ; 
she  tortures  herself  with  imagined  afflic- 
tions of  her  own.  If  she  would  but  take  a 
short  view,  she  would  see  a  living  child  yet 
spared  to  her,  to  be  loved  and  enjoyed 
and  lived  for.  Then,  instead  of  having  two 
sorrows,  she  would  have  one  great  posses- 
sion to  set  over  against  a  great  loss ;  her 
duty  to  the  living  would  be  not  only  a 
relief  to  her  anguish,  but  the  best  tribute 
she  could  pay  to  the  departed. 

That  is  a  short  view  which  only  takes  in 


SHORT  VIEWS.  33 

immediate  duty  to  be  done,  the  immediate 
temptation  to  be  met,  and  the  immediate 
sorrow  to  be  carried.  My  friend,  if  you 
have  money  enough  to-day  for  your  daily 
wants  and  something  for  God's  treasury, 
don't  torment  yourself  with  the  idea  that 
you  or  yours  may  yet  get  into  an  alms- 
house. If  your  children  cluster  around 
your  table,  enjoy  them,  train  them,  trust 
them  to  God,  without  racking  yourself  with 
a  dread  that  the  little  ones  may  some  time 
be  carried  off  by  the  scarlet  fever,  or  the 
older  ones  may  yet  be  ill  married  or  may 
fall  into  disgrace.  Faith  carries  present 
loads  and  meets  present  assaults  and  feeds 
on  present  promises,  and  commits  the  fu- 
ture to  a  faithful  God.     Its  song  is,  — 

"  Keep  Thou  my  feet ;  I  do  not  ask  to  see 
The  distant  scene ;  one  step 's  enough  for  me." 

We  shall  always  take  that  one  step  more 
wisely  and  firmly  and  successfully  if  we 
keep  our  eye  on  that  only.     The  man  who 


34  SHORT  VIEWS. 

is  climbing  the  Alps  must  not  look  too  far 
ahead,  or  it  will  tire  him ;  he  must  not  look 
back,  or  he  gets  dizzy ;  he  has  but  to  fol- 
low his  guide,  and  set  his  foot  on  the  right 
spot  before  him.  This  is  the  way  you  and 
I  must  let  Christ  lead,  and  have  Him  so 
close  to  us  also  that  it  will  be  but  a  short 
view  to  behold  Him.  Sometimes  young 
Christians  say  to  me, "  I  am  afraid  to  make 
a  public  confession  of  Christ,  I  may  not 
hold  out."  They  have  nothing  to  do  with 
holding  07it ;  it  is  simply  their  duty  to  hold 
071.  When  future  trials  and  perils  come, 
their  Master  will  give  them  help  for  the 
hour,  if  they  only  make  sure  that  they  are 
His.  The  short  view  they  need  to  take  is 
a  close,  clear  view  of  their  own  spiritual 
wants,  and  a  distinct  view  of  Jesus  as  ever 
at  hand  to  meet  those  wants.  If  the  fish- 
ermen of  Galilee  had  worried  themselves 
over  the  hardships  they  were  to  encounter, 
they  might  have  been  frightened  out  of 
their  apostleships  and  their  eternal  crowns. 


SHORT   VIEWS. 


35 


We  ministers  need  to  guard  against  this 
malignant  devil  of  worry.  It  torments  one 
pastor  with  a  dread  lest,  if  he  preach  cer- 
tain truths  boldly,  he  may  offend  his  rich 
pew-holders  and  drive  them  away.  Let 
him  take  care  of  his  conscience,  and  his 
Master  will  take  care  of  him.  Another 
is  worried  lest  his  cruse  may  run  dry  and 
his  barrel  fail.  But  his  cruse  has  not  yet 
run  dry.  Oh  no,  it  is  his  faith  that  is  run- 
ning low.  Some  of  us,  at  the  beginning 
of  a  year's  work,  are  tempted  to  overload 
ourselves  with  the  anticipation  of  how  much 
we  have  to  do ;  we  need  not  worry  if  we 
will  only  remember  that  during  the  whole 
year  there  will  be  only  one  working  day, 
and  that  is  —  to-day.  Sufficient  to  each 
day  is  the  labor  thereof. 

Once  more  we  say  —  let  us  take  short 
views.  Let  us  not  climb  the  high  wall  till 
we  get  to  it,  or  fight  the  battle  till  it  opens, 
or  shed  tears  over  sorrows  that  may 
never  come,  or  lose  the  joys  and  blessings 


36 


SHORT  VIEWS. 


that  we  have,  by  the  sinful  fear  that  God 
will  take  them  away  from  us.  We  need  all 
our  strength  and  all  the  grace  God  can  give 
us  for  to-day's  burdens  and  to-day's  battle. 
To-morrow  belongs  to  our  Heavenly 
Father :  I  would  not  know  its  secrets  if  I 
could.  It  is  far  better  to  know  Whom  we 
trust,  and  that  He  is  able  to  keep  all  we 
commit  to  Him  until  the  last  great  day. 


FLOWERS    FROM   THE  TOMB  OF  JESUS. 


OUR  LORD  was  crucified  in  the  season 
of  early  flowers.  During  the  month 
Nisan  (or  April)  the  winter  rains  made  veg- 
etation leap  forth  into  wondrous  beauty. 
The  gardens  were  brilliant  with  the  crocus 
and  the  hyacinth,  and  the  plains  of  Sharon 
were  snowy  with  the  white  narcissus.  Jesus 
was  buried  in  a  rich  man's  garden,  and  no 
one  can  tell  how  many  flowers  and  odorous 
vines  had  been  planted  by  the  gardener 
around  Joseph's  family  tomb.  The  spices 
within  and  the  plants  without  may  have 
made  the  spot  in  which  our  dear  Master 
slumbered  exceeding  fragrant. 

That  hallowed  tomb  was  itself  buried  up 
centuries  ago,  and  the  very  spot  cannot  be 


38    FLOWERS  PROM  THE   TOMB  OF  JESUS. 

identified.  But  there  are  certain  flowers  of 
grace  which  will  bloom  upon  the  grave 
of  Jesus  to  the  end  of  time.  Faith  grows 
there  in  beautiful  profusion.  A  sad  com- 
pany of  ignorant  doubters  were  those  disci- 
ples In  regard  to  their  Master's  resurrection ; 
even  when  the  three  women  came  back  from 
the  sepulchre  and  pronounced  it  empty, 
and  that  they  had  seen  the  Saviour  alive, 
some  of  the  Apostles  treated  it  as  an  "  idle 
tale  and  believed  it  not."  Thomas  stood 
out  until  an  actual  sight  of  his  Lord  silenced 
his  unbelief.  From  that  day  faith  in  Christ's 
victory  over  death  has  been  a  cardinal  fea- 
ture in  every  Christian's  creed.  With  it  is 
linked  that  other  faith  that  if  Jesus  rose 
again,  so  would  every  one  who  *'  sleeps  in 
Jesus  "  rise  also  from  the  dust.  This  peren- 
nial flower  of  faith,  which  blooms  like  cer- 
tain roses  in  all  seasons,  has  been  set  out 
on  innumerable  graves  all  over  our  death- 
cursed  world.  It  grows  on  the  little  mound 
that  covers  my  dear  boy ;   I  seem  to  see  it 


FLOWERS  PROM  THE   TOMB  OF  JESUS.     39 

all    over  among   the    hillocks    of  Green- 
wood. 

Hope  is  another  fragrant  flower  that 
springs  from  the  buriah  sod.  On  one  leaf 
of  the  plant  we  read,  "  I  am  the  Resurrec- 
tion and  the  Life ;  he  that  believeth  in  Me, 
though  he  were  dead, 7^/  shall  he  live!'  On 
another  leaf  is  inscribed,  ''  Sorrow  not  as 
others  that  have  no  hope ;  for  if  Jesus  died 
and  rose  again,  even  so  them  also  which 
sleep  in  Jesus  will  God  bring  with  Him." 
The  expectation  of  every  pastor,  that  he 
shall  yet  ''  break  ground  "  and  ascend  with 
his  flock,  cheers  his  soul  when  he  stands 
beside  the  grave  in  which  his  faithful  ones 
are  being  laid,  dust  to  dust.  This  hope 
is  an  anchor  that  has  held  many  a  poor 
heart-broken  mother  who  has  moistened 
her  darling's  resting  place  with  her  tears. 
To  her  Jesus  draws  nigh  and  says,  "  Weep 
not;  this  child  shall  rise  again."  And  so 
she  tills  that  little  sacred  soil  until  it  is 
covered  over  with  the  blossoms  of  hope 


40    FLOWERS  FROM   THE    TOMB  OF  JESUS. 

as  thick  as  white  HHes  of  the  valley.  The 
original  seeds  of  this  fair  flower  came  from 
Christ's  tomb  in  the  garden.  It  grows  best 
when  it  is  watered  by  prayer.  That  is 
a  desolate  grave  indeed  over  which  there 
does  not  creep  out  a  single  sprig  or  blade 
of  Hope ! 

Are  these  all  the  flowers  which  thrive  in 
the  hallowed  mould  in  which  Christ's  suc- 
cessors lie?  No!  There  is  one  modest 
lily  called  Resignation.  Jesus  Himself  de- 
clared that  it  was  better  that  He  should 
have  died,  for  He  said  that  He  "  ought  to 
have  suff'ered  and  to  enter  into  His  glory." 
His  road  to  glory  lay  through  the  tomb, 
and  so  must  ours.  Never  did  our  Lord  set 
this  world  above  the  better  world.  He  only 
brought  three'  persons  back  to  life  (that 
we  read  of),  and  then  only  for  a  high  and 
especial  purpose  to  be  gained.  There  is 
a  legend  that  the  first  thing  Lazarus  said 
after  his  resurrection  was,  "  Shall  I  have  to 
die  again?"     On  being  told  that  he  must, 


FLOWERS  FROM  THE   TOMB  OF  JESUS.    41 

it  is  said  that  he  never  smiled  afterward. 
Truly,  if  some  of  the  crowned  ones  in  Par- 
adise were  driven  back  to  this  sin-stained 
earth,  they  might  well  wear  mourning  for 
their  own  bereavement.  To  die  is  gain ! 
That  is  the  sweet  word  which  I  detect  in 
every  bud  and  leaf  on  the  plant  of  Resig- 
nation. God  hath  better  things  in  store 
for  us;    His  will,  not  ours,  be  done. 

It  may  seem  a  strange  place  to  set  out 
the  flower  of  Thankfulness ;  but  that,  too, 
grows  and  emits  its  sweetness  from  Christ's 
sepulchre  and  those  of  His  followers.  Paul, 
standing  by  that  grave  over  which  Jesus 
had  triumphed,  shouts  aloud,  "  Thanks  be 
to  God  who  giveth  us  the  victory  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord."  His  triumph  over 
death  is  our  triumph.  Because  He  rose 
and  lives  again,  we  shall  live  also. 

Not  only  on  Easter  Sabbaths  are  these 
flowers  to  be  found  on  our  Lord's  emptied 
sepulchre,  but  every  day,  in  every  clime, 
wherever   death   hollows    a    grave,    these 


42    FLOWERS  FROM  THE   TOMB  OF  JESUS. 

precious  plants  of  grace  may  be  made  to 
bloom,  and  to  scatter  their  delicious  per- 
fumes. Perhaps  some  sorrowing  child  of 
God  may  read  these  lines  and  inquire, 
*' Where  shall  I  go  to  find  faith  and  hope, 
and  resignation  for  yonder  freshly  piled 
mound  over  my  dead?"  We  answer,  Go 
to  the  tomb  where  Jesus  vanquished  death, 
—  in  the  garden. 


TRUSTING   GOD   IN   THE   DARK. 


SOMETIMES  we  have  an  experience  in 
life  that  seems  Hke  walking  through  a 
long  dark  tunnel.  The  chiUing  air  and  the 
thick  darkness  make  it  hard  walking,  and 
the  constant  wonder  is  why  we  are  com- 
pelled to  tread  so  gloomy  a  path,  while 
others  are  in  the  open  day  of  health  and 
happiness.  We  can  only  fix  our  eyes  on 
the  bright  light  at  the  end  of  the  tunnel, 
and  we  comfort  ourselves  with  the  thought 
that  every  step  we  take  brings  us  nearer  to 
the  joy  and  the  rest  that  lie  at  the  end  of 
the  way^  Extinguish  the  light  of  heaven 
that  gleams  in  the  distance,  and  this  tun- 
nel of  trial  would  become  a  horrible  tomb. 
Some  of  us  are  passing  through  just  such 


44  TRUSTING  GOD  IN  THE  DARK, 

an  experience  now.  We  can  adopt  the 
plaintive  language  of  the  Psalmist  and  cry 
out :  **  Thy  hand  presseth  us  sore ;  as  for 
the  light  of  our  eyes,  it  also  is  gone  from 
us ;  we  are  ready  to  halt,  and  our  sorrow  is 
continually  before  us." 

One  of  the  most  trying  features  of  our 
trial  is  that  we  cannot  discover  the  *'  why  " 
or  the  "  wherefore "  of  our  special  afflic- 
tions. Our  Heavenly  Father  did  not  con- 
sult us  before  the  trial  came,  and  He  does 
not  explain  to  us  why  He  sent  it.  His 
ways  are  not  our  ways,  nor  His  thoughts 
our  thoughts ;  nay,  they  are  the  very  oppo- 
site. The  mystery  of  the  providence  per- 
plexes and  staggers  us.  For  example,  I 
open  my  daily  journal,  and  read  that  the 
Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  whom  I  left  a  few 
months  ago  in  the  prime  of  vigorous  health 
and  wide  usefulness,  is  cut  off  in  the  midst 
of  his  days.  All  his  preparatory  training 
for  his  office  by  eighteen  years  of  mission- 
ary life  comes  to  naught.     This  very  day  I 


TRUSTING   GOD  IN  THE  DARK.  45 

am  called  for  the  sixth  time  in  a  few  years 
to  bury  the  dead  from  a  certain  Christian 
household.  This  time  it  is  the  head  of  the 
house  that  is  taken,  and  the  children  are 
left  to  orphanage.  Beside  me  now  sits  a 
mourning  mother,  whose  aching  heart  can- 
not understand  why  a  beloved  child  is 
snatched  away  when  she  seemed  the  most 
indispensable  to  the  happiness  of  the  home. 
Every  week  a  pastor  has  to  confront  these 
mysteries  in  the  dealings  of  a  God  of  love. 
To  the  torturing  question,  *'  Why  does  God 
lead  me  into  this  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
darkness?"  we  can  only  reply,  *' Even  so, 
Father,  for  so  it  seems  good  in  Thy  sight." 
We  are  brought  into  the  tunnel,  however 
we  shrink  back.  There  is  no  retreat;  we 
have  nothing  left  to  us  but  to  grasp  the 
very  Hand  that  brought  us  there  and  push 
forward.  Like  Bunyan's  Pilgrim,  we  can 
only  say,  "  I  see  not  but  that  my  road  to 
heaven  lieth  through  this  very  valley." 
Just  in  such  trying  hours  it  is  that  the 


46  TRUSTING  GOD  IN  THR  DARK. 

Adversary  assails  us  most  fiercely.  He 
stirs  up  in  our  hearts  bitter  thoughts 
against  God.  He  points  us  to  the  actual 
and  realized  loss,  and  tells  us  that  heaven 
is  utterly  unseen,  and  no  one  comes  back 
to  assure  us  of  its  reality.  And  so  he 
endeavors,  with  devilish  suggestions,  to 
blow  out  such  lamps  of  divine  promise  as 
we  have,  to  shatter  every  staff  that  we 
carry,  and  to  make  the  pathway  of  trial 
more  dark  and  desperate  than  before. 
This  is  not  fancy ;  it  is  the  actual  trial  to 
which  the  faith  of  thousands  of  God's  peo- 
ple is  at  this  moment  subjected.  Under 
these  severe  experiences  more  than  one 
Christian  has  been  sorely  tempted  to  turn 
infidel,  and  to  *'  choose  death  rather  than 
Hfe." 

To  my  own  mind  there  is  only  one  solu- 
tion for  these  mysteries  and  only  one  sup- 
port for  these  days  of  terrible  affliction. 
The  only  relief  I  can  find  is  in  the  certainty 
that  this  life  is  not  the  end,  but  simply 


TRUSTING   GOD  IN   THE  DARK.  47 

the  prepa7'atory  school  for  the  real  and  the 
endless  life  that  is  beyond.  The  moment 
that  I  accept  this  truth  fully  and  hold 
it  firmly,  I  find  solid  ground  for  my  feet 
and  light  for  my  sorrowing  soul.  Then 
I  discover  that  the  whole  journey  of  the 
believer  is  *' portioned  out"  to  him,  and 
that  the  dark  tunnel  on  the  road  is  just 
as. surely  appointed  wisely  as  is  the  most 
flowery  mead  or  the  happiest  walk  over 
the  "  Delectable  Mountains."  Nay,  more. 
When  we  reach  heaven,  we  may  discover 
that  the  richest  and  deepest  and  most  prof- 
itable experiences  we  had  in  this  world 
were  those  which  were  gained  in  the  very 
roads  from  which  we  shrank  back  with 
dread.  The  bitter  cups  we  tried  to  push 
away  contained  the  medicines  we  most 
needed.  The  hardest  lessons  that  we  learn 
are  those  which  teach  us  the  most  and  best 
fit  us  for  service  here  and  glory  hereafter. 
It  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  obey 
God  when  He  commands  us  to  do  what  we 


43  TRUSTING  GOD  IN   THE  DARK. 

like,  and  to  trust  Him  when  the  path  is  all 
sunshine.  The  real  victory  of  faith  is  to 
trust  God  in  the  dark  and  through  the 
dark.  Let  us  be  assured  of  this,  that,  if 
the  lesson  and  the  rod  are  of  His  appointing, 
and  that  His  all-wise  love  has  engineered 
the  deep  tunnels  of  trial  on  the  heaven- 
ward road.  He  will  never  desert  us  during 
the  discipline.  The  vital  thing  for  us  is, 
not  to  deny  and  desert  Him. 

Let  us  also  keep  in  mind  that  the  chief 
object  of  the  discipline  is  to  develop  char- 
acter and  to  improve  the  graces  of  His 
children.  Whom  He  loveth  He  chasteneth, 
and  correcteth  every  son  whom  He  receiv- 
eth.  Every  branch  that  beareth  not  fruit 
He  prwieth  it,  that  it  may  bring  forth  more 
fruit.  "  Why  do  you  cut  that  pomegranate- 
bush  so  cruelly?"  said  a  gentleman  to  his 
gardener.  The  answer  was,  *'  Because  it  is 
all  running  to  useless  leaves,  and  I  want 
to  make  it  bear''  Ah  !  it  is  a  keen  knife 
that   our    Divine   Gardener   employs,  and 


TRUSTING  GOD  IN  THE  DARK.  49 

He  often  severs  the  very  heartstrings  by 
His  discipline ;  but  "  afterward  it  yieldeth 
peaceable  fruit  unto  them  that  have  been 
exercised  thereby,  even  the  fruit  of  right- 
eousness." God  has  a  great  many  crucibles 
for  His  gold,  where  He  may  refine  it.  There 
is  so  much  alloy  of  pride  and  self-will,  or 
covetousness,  or  sinful  idolatry  in  genuine 
Christians  that  they  require  the  *'  fining- 
pot"  and  the  furnace.  Sometimes  pros- 
perity is  tenfold  more  damaging  to  us  than 
sharp  adversity.  A  fit  of  sickness  may  do 
more  for  soul-health  than  years  of  bodily 
strength  and  comfort. 

To  all  my  readers  who  are  wondering 
why  a  loving  God  has  subjected  them  so 
often  to  the  furnace,  my  only  answer  is,  that 
God  owns  you  and  me,  and  He  has  a  right  to 
do  with  us  just  as  He  pleases.  If  He  wants 
to  keep  His  silver  over  a  hot  flame  until  He 
can  see  His  own  countenance  reflected  in 
the  metal,  then  He  has  a  right  to  do  so.  It 
is  the  Lord,  it  is  my  loving  Teacher,  it  is 

4 


50  TRUSTING   GOD  IN   THE  DARK. 

my  Heavenly  Father  ;  let  Him  do  what 
seemeth  Him  good.  He  will  not  lay  on 
one  stroke  in  cruelty,  or  a  single  one  that 
He  cannot  give  me  grace  to  bear.  Life's 
school-days  and  nights  will  soon  be  over. 
Pruning-time  will  soon  be  ended.  The 
crucibles  will  not  be  needed  in  heaven. 

So,  to  all  my  fellow-sufferers  who  are 
threading  their  way  through  the  tunnels  of 
trial,  I  would  say :  Tighten  your  loins  with 
the  promises,  and  keep  the  strong  staff  ot 
faith  well  in  hand.  Trust  God  in  the  dark. 
We  are  safer  with  Him  in  the  dark  than 
without  Him  in  the  sunshine.  He  will  not 
suffer  thy  foot  to  stumble.  His  rod  and 
His  staff  never  break.  Why  He  brought 
us  here  we  know  not  now,  but  we  shall 
know  hereafter.  At  the  end  of  the  gloomy 
passage  beams  the  heavenly  light.  Then 
comes  the  exceeding  and  eternal  weight 
of  glory ! 


GOD'S  SCHOOL,  AND   ITS  LESSONS. 


A  CERTAIN  gray-haired  pupil  in  the 
■^  ^  school  of  his  Heavenly  Father  once* 
said,  "  O  God,  Thou  hast  tatcght  me 
from  my  youth."  His  experience  in  that 
school  had  been  very  remarkable,  from  his 
early  beginnings  among  the  sheep-cotes 
of  Bethlehem.  Constantly  seeking  instruc- 
tion, he  had  prayed,  "  Teach  me  Thy  stat- 
utes," "  Teach  me  Thy  way,"  "  Teach  me 
to  do  Thy  will."  Sharp  schooling  had  he 
received  in  those  days  of  humiliation  when 
a  traitor-son  drove  him  out  of  Jerusalem. 
Terrible  punishment  did  he  bring  upon 
himself  once  when  ''  lust  brought  forth  sin, 
and  sin  brought  forth  death,"  in  the  crime 
against  Uriah.     But  had  David  not  been 


5i       GOD'S  SCHOOL,  AND  ITS  LESSONS. 

under  the  instruction  and  discipline  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  we  never  would  have  had 
many  of  the  richest,  profoundest,  and 
most  majestic  Psalms,  —  many  of  their 
most  piercing  wails  and  of  their  most 
jubilant  thankgsivings. 

That  same  school  in  which  David  was  a 
pupil  nearly  thirty  centuries  ago  is  open 
yet.  The  term-time  is  as  long  as  life  lasts. 
It  has  its  recreations  and  its  rewards  and 
its  medals  of  honor,  but  no  vacations. 
School  is  never  "  out"  until  death  comes 
to  the  door  and  beckons  the  pupil  away. 
And  oh !  how  happy  many  a  scholar  has 
been  when  the  messenger  has  said  to  his 
heart,  "  Now,  my  child,  you  have  learned 
the  hard  lessons,  and  have  finished  your 
course ;  now  you  may  come  homer 

Of  this  wonderful  school  God  Himself 
is  the  Principal  or  Superintendent.  The 
supreme  purpose  of  it  is  to  form  character 
and  to  fit  the  immortal  soul  for  the  after- 
life of  eternity.     If  there  is  no  immortality 


GOD'S  SCHOOL,  AND  ITS  LESSONS.       53 

of  being,  and  If  *'  death  ends  all,"  then  this 
world  is  an  utter  failure,  and  what  we  call 
Providence  becomes  an  unintelligible  jar- 
gon. The  moment  we  recognize  the  fact 
that  this  life  is  only  a  training-school  to  fit 
us  for  a  coming  world,  that  the  Bible  is  its 
infallible  text-book  and  the  Holy  Spirit 
its  instructor  and  the  Lord  of  glory  its 
all-wise  and  all-loving  Head,  then  dark 
things  become  light,  seemingly  crooked 
things  become  straight,  and  mysteries 
become  plain.  If  I  am  only  a  scholar,  I 
must  submit  to  the  rod  for  my  own  correc- 
tion, and  remember  Who  hath  appointed  it. 
If  I  am  only  a  scholar,  I  must  spell  out  the 
hard  lessons  and  submit  to  the  sharp  tasks, 
even  though  the  pages  of  my  diary  be 
often  blotted  with  tears;  the  things  that 
I  understand  not  now,  I  "  shall  know  here- 
after," when  I  have  graduated  into  heaven. 
My  Divine  Teacher  seems  to  have  two 
great  methods  in  this  earthly  school  of  His, 
—  instruction  and  discipline.     I  am  utterly 


54       GOD'S  SCHOOL,  AND  ITS  LESSONS. 

ignorant  and  terribly  wayward,  therefore  I 
need  both ;  and  they  often  blend  together. 
Part  of  my  instruction  I  get  from  His  won- 
drous Word,  and  it  is  very  inspiring  and 
fascinating.  A  part  I  receive  from  the 
Holy  Spirit's^  work,  and  it  is  very  sanctify- 
ing. But  no  part  of  our  schooling  costs 
so  dearly  or  yields  such  gracious  fruits  as 
the  process  of  chastisement.  The  most 
famous  teacher  in  Philadelphia,  in  his  day, 
once  said  to  a  rich,  indulgent  father,  "  You 
must  take  your  boy  out  of  my  school  if 
you  are  not  willing  to  have  me  chastise 
him ;  he  and  the  school  too  will  be  ruined 
if  I  have  no  disciplined 

Our  Heavenly  Teacher  conducts  His 
training-school  for  the  very  salvation  of 
His  scholars,  and  thus  for  His  own  honor 
and  glory.  The  very  word  *'  disciple " 
{disciptclus)  signifies  a  little  scholar.  The 
first  essential  to  discipleship  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  was  the  willingness  to  deny  self  and 
to  bear  a  cross  at  His  bidding.     That  prin- 


GOD'S  SCHOOL,  AND  ITS  LESSONS.       5  5 

ciple  runs  through  all  the  deepest,  richest 
Christian    experience,    and   will    do    so,    I 
suppose,  to  the  end  of  time.     Often  when 
the  hard   lesson  starts  the  tears,  and   the 
aching  heart  cries  out  in  anguish,  the  hand 
of  the  dear  Master  points  up  to  the  words : 
*'  As  many  as  I  love,  I  rebuke  and  chasten : 
be  zealous  therefore,  and  repent."    "  Whom 
the    Lord     loveth     He     chasteneth,     and 
scourgeth  every  son  whom  He  receiveth. 
.  .  .  No  chastening  for  the  present  seemeth 
to  be  joyous,  but  grievous :    nevertheless 
afterward  it  yieldeth  the  peaceable  fruit  of 
righteousness."     It  is  the  "  afterward  "  that 
justifies  the  rod  and  reconciles  us  to  the 
stroke.     Grand    old    Richard    Baxter    ex- 
claimed after  a  life  of  hard  toil  and  con- 
stant suffering,  ''  O  God,  I  thank  Thee  for 
a  bodily  discipline  of  eight  and  fifty  years." 
Paul  was  indulging  in  no  hypocritical  cant 
when   he   said,  ''  I  rejoice    in  tribulation." 
God's  ripest  and  most  royal  scholars  are 
made   such   by   an   expensive    education. 


56       GOD'S  SCHOOL,  AND  ITS  LESSONS. 

His  brightest  gold  comes  out  of  the  hot- 
test furnace. 

In  this  school  of  grace  He  employs  many- 
tutors.  Sometimes  He  employs  Poverty, 
which  does  for  the  soul  what  it  did  for  the 
minds  of  such  hard-faring  youths  as  Hugh 
Miller  and  James  A.  Garfield,  it  sinews 
the  strength  and  develops  force.  More 
than  one  Christian  who  was  getting  too 
prosperous  for  his  spiritual  good  has  been 
turned  over  to  this  severe  tutor,  and  he 
has  sent  him  down  to  an  humbler  bench. 
As  the  purse  was  emptied,  the  soul  grew 
richer  in  humility,  and  began  to  bear  the 
fruits  of  the  Spirit. 

Another  of  God's  tutors  is  Disappoint- 
ment ;  and  some  of  the  best  lessons  in  life 
are  taught  us  by  that  stern-visaged  school- 
master. One  of  his  lessons  is  that  this 
world  was  not  made  solely  for  us,  and  our 
loss  is  often  another  man's  gain.  A 
second  lesson  is  that  our  losses  are  often 
the  very  richest  blessings.    We  had  *'  de- 


GOD'S  SCHOOL,  AND  ITS  LESSONS.       57 

vised  a  way"  for  ourselves,  and  it  would 
have  led  to  certain  danger.  God  could  not 
have  sent  a  severer  judgment  on  us  than 
to  let  us  have  our  own  way ;  so  He  sent 
disappointment  to  drive  us  back.  We 
cried  out  bitterly  at  first,  but  by  and  by  we 
saw  what  we  had  escaped,  and  blessed  the 
Hand  that  had  smitten  us  in  the  face.  If  I 
ever  reach  heaven,  I  shall  feel  like  rearing 
a  monument  there  of  gratitude  to  the  stern- 
visaged  old  tutor  who  so  often  helped  me 
on  by  putting  me  back,  and  stripped  me 
that  I  might  travel  heavenward  the  lighter 
and  the  freer. 

Ah,  brethren,  this  is  a  marvellous 
school  which  Divine  Wisdom  has  opened, 
and  a  Father's  love  is  superintending! 
He  never  spares  the  rod  when  the  child  is 
in  danger  of  being  spoiled.  His  pruning- 
knife  cuts  deep,  but  the  clusters  of  grapes 
are  all  the  larger  and  the  sweeter.  When 
Michael  Angelo  saw  a  block  of  marble 
lying   in  the   dirt,  he  said,  "There   is  an 


58       GOD'S  SCHOOL,  AND  ITS  LESSONS. 

angel  in  that  marble,  and  I  will  bring  it 
out."  His  hammer  and  chisel  struck  hard 
and  deep,  till  the  angel  came  forth.  God's 
hammer  of  trial,  blow  on  blow,  brings  out 
such  angels  as  Faith,  and  sweet-visaged 
Peace,  and  strong-limbed  Patience,  and 
Sympathy,  and  the  Love  that  has  the  like- 
ness of  Jesus  Christ. 

This  school  of  God  will  soon  close  for 
us ;  the  term-time  is  shortening  every 
hour.  Let  us  not  shirk  a  lesson,  however 
hard,  or  wince  under  a  rod  of  chastisement, 
however  sore  and  heavy.  The  richer  will 
be  the  crown  if  we  endure  to  the  end  and 
graduate  into  glory.  What  a  promotion 
will  that  be  for  hearts  that  so  often  ached, 
and  for  eyes  that  so  often  wept,  and  for 
the  faith  that  so  often  bled  under  the  blow, 
—  to  be  lifted  into  the  magnificent  inher- 
itance of  the  saints  in  light ! 


GOD'S   UNFOLDINGS. 


OITTING  to-day  in  Christ's  school  (for 
^^  that  is  an  essential  idea  of  His  Church), 
let  me  say  a  few  words  to  my  fellow- 
scholars.  The  meek  and  the  teachable  will 
He  guide  in  His  way.  There  is  room  for 
us  all  in  that  spot  where  Mary  sat,  —  at  the 
feet  of  Jesus.  And  the  encouragement  to 
us  is :  '*  Call  unto  Me,  and  I  will  answer 
thee,  and  shew  thee  great  and  mighty  things 
which  thou  knowest  not."  This  does  not 
mean  everything,  even  though  our  hearts 
may  ache  to  find  out  many  mysteries. 
The  "  secret  things  belong  unto  God." 
Over  certain  doors  the  inscription  is  af- 
fixed :  *'  No  admittance  here."     In  heaven 


6o  GOD'S   UNFOLDINGS. 

we  may  know  these  things  even  as  we  are 
known;  but  now  they  are  wisely  hidden 
from  our  eyes. 

Yet  our  all-wise  and  loving  God  is  con- 
stantly unfolding  Himself  to  His  earthly 
children.  All  scientific  discovery  is  the 
passage  from  the  unknown  into  the  known ; 
every  truth  discovered  is  a  fresh  unfolding 
of  the  Creator.  Very  slowly,  very  grad- 
ually is  this  progress  effected.  Centuries 
passed  away  before  Galileo  found  out  the 
rotation  of  the  earth,  and  Newton  the  law 
of  gravitation.  Other  generations  must 
roll  by  before  man  learned  enough  about 
God's  laws  of  electro-magnetism  to  fashion 
the  ocean  telegraph.  Yet  these  laws- were 
all  in  existence  in  the  days  of  Noah  and 
Abraham;  only  they  had  not  yet  been 
unfolded.  I  once  spent  a  night  on  Mount 
Righi,  and  there  was  nothing  visible  for 
a  rood  from  my  window.  But  when  the 
morning  broke,  the  icy  crowns  of  the  Jung- 
frau  and  the  Schreckhorn  began  to  glitter 


GOD'S  UNFOLDINGS.]  6 1 

in  the  early  beams.  They  had  been  there 
all  the  night,  waiting  for  the  unfoldings  of 
the  dawn.  Even  so  have  all  God's  laws 
of  the  material  universe  and  all  His  pur- 
poses of  redeeming  mercy  through  Jesus 
Christ  been  in  existence  from  the  begin- 
ning. They  only  waited  for  the  dayspring 
of  discovery.  And  one  of  the  most  de- 
lightful occupations  of  a  devout  mind  is 
to  watch  the  unfoldings  of  God,  and  to 
drink  in  new  truths  as  He  gradually  reveals 
them. 

The  more  closely  I  study  my  Bible,  the 
more  I  detect  a  steady  progress  of  divine 
doctrine,  from  the  first  line  of  Genesis  to 
the  closing  grandeur  of  the  Apocalypse. 
That  little  altar  of  turf  on  which  Abel  lays 
his  lamb  points  onward  to  Calvary.  The 
whole  Jewish  dispensation  goes  on  step  by 
step  until  the  Messiah  comes.  Then  I  find 
four  sections  of  the  Book  which  photograph 
the  life  of  Jesus  to  me,  each  one  presenting 
some  particular  view  of  my  Saviour's  face 


62  GOD'S   UNFOLDINGS. 

and  footsteps,  and  miracles  and  teachings. 
Calvary  and  the  resurrection  only  prepare 
the  way  for  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
Then  comes  the  visible  manifestation  of  the 
Gospel  in  the  conversion  and  organization 
of  the  Primitive  Church.  Peter's  tongue, 
and  Paul's  brain,  and  John's  heart,  and  Dor- 
cas's needle  all  get  into  motion.  These  new 
converts  require  spiritual  instruction,  and 
the  whole  series  of  inspired  epistles  are 
produced.  The  man  or  the  minister  who 
asserts  that  the  writings  of  the  four  evan- 
gelists are  "  Bible  enough  for  him,"  and 
that  the  epistles  of  Paul  are  only  excel- 
lent surplusage,  worthy  of  small  attention, 
simply  writes  himself  down  an  ignoramus. 
There  is  as  veritable  an  unfolding  of  heav- 
enly truth  in  the  eighth  chapter  to  the 
Romans  as  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
And  when  the  laws  of  our  spiritual  life  have 
been  unfolded  in  the  inspired  epistles  of 
Paul,  John,  Peter,  and  James,  then  the 
magnificent  panorama  of  the  Apocalypse 


GOD'S   UNFOLDINGS.  6^ 

is  unrolled,  and  we  get  a  glimpse  of  Christ's 
final  triumphs  and  the  glory  of  His  celestial 
kingdom.  After  John  lays  down  his  pen, 
History  takes  up  hers,  and  carries  us  on 
through  the  martyrdoms  of  saints,  and  the 
councils,  and  the  conflicts,  and  the  Refor- 
mation period,  and  the  inauguration  of 
modern  missions  to  the  nations  who  sit  in 
(^arkness.  At  the  foot  of  every  page  she 
writes,  "■  The  earth  is  the  Lord's,  and  the 
fulness  thereof." 

In  no  direction  do  we  behold  more  won- 
derful unfoldings  of  God  than  in  what  we 
call  His  Providence.  This  is  a  department 
of  God's  school  in  which  we  are  learning: 
fresh  lessons  every  day.  In  Providence, 
divine  wisdom  is  married  to  divine  love. 
All  things  work  together  for  good  to  them 
who  love  God  and  trust  Him.  The  sceptic 
jeers  at  this,  but  the  trusting  Christian 
knows  it  from  actual  experience.  It  is 
often  a  dear-bought  experience,  for  some 
of  God's  truths  are  knocked   into    us  by 


64  GOD'S  UNFOLDINGS. 

hard  blows,  and  some  lessons  are  spelled 
out  through  eyes  cleansed  with  tears. 
Our  perverse  mistake  is  that  we  demand 
that  God  shall  explain  Himself  at  every 
step,  instead  of  waiting  for  Him  to  unfold 
His  intricate  purposes  at  His  own  time  and 

in  His  own  way.   Why  A is  set  up  and 

good  Brother  B (who  seems  equally 

deserving)  is  cast  down ;  why  the  only 
little  crib  in  one  Christian  home  is  emp- 
tied by  death,  and  the  nursery  in  another 
home  is  full  of  happy  voices ;  why  one 
good  enterprise  prospers  and  another  one 
is  wrecked,  —  all  such  perplexing  puzzles 
shake  terribly  the  faith  that  is  not  well 
grounded  on  the  Rock. 

To  all  these  pitiable  outcries  the  calm 
answer  of  our  Heavenly  Father  is  :  *'Be  still, 
and  know  that  I  am  God.  I  lead  the  blind 
by  a  way  they  know  not.  What  I  do 
thou  knowest  not  now,  but  thou  shalt 
know  hereafter."  These  are  the  voices  of 
love  which  come  to  us  from  behind  the 


GOD'S   UNFOLDINGS.  65 

cloud.  If  we  wait  patiently,  the  cloud  will 
break  away  or  part  asunder,  and  our  eyes 
will  behold  the  Rainbow  of  Mercy  over- 
arching the  Throne.  Twenty  years  ago, 
on  a  day  of  thick  fog  and  storm,  I  as- 
cended Mount  Washington  by  the  old 
bridle-path.  Over  the  slippery  boulders 
we  picked  our  toilsome  way,  unable  to  see 
anything  but  our  sure-footed  horse  and  our 
guide.  A  sulky  company  were  we  when 
we  reached  the  "Tip-top  House."  But 
presently  a  strong  wind  swept  away  the 
banks  of  mist,  and  revealed  the  magnificent 
landscape  from  the  mountain's  base  to  the 
great  wide  sea.  As  the  wonderful  vision 
unfolded  itself  to  our  delighted  eyes,  we 
could  mark  the  pathway  by  which  we  had 
been  led  up  to  that  mount  of  discovery. 
Tenfold  more  delightful  was  the  outlook 
because  we  had  gained  it  by  such  hard 
toil  and  it  had  been  so  long  hidden  from 
our  sight. 

That  day's  experience  was  a  sermon  to 
5 


66  GOD'S   UNFOLDINGS, 

my  soul.  It  taught  me  afresh  just  how  a 
believer  must  leave  God  to  order  his  foot- 
steps, and  how  he  must  wait  for  God  to 
unfold  the  hidden  purposes  of  His  love. 
Faith's  stairways  are  steep  and  slippery. 
They  can  only  be  climbed  by  a  sure  foot 
and  a  steady  hold  on  the  Unseen  Hand. 
In  the  hard  clamber  we  are  often  thrown 
down  on  our  knees.  Cry  as  loudly  as  we 
may  In  the  driving  mist  for  "  more  light," 
we  do  not  receive  any  other  answer  than 
this:  "Fear  not!  Only  trust!''  If  we 
unloose  our  hold  on  God's  hand  for  an 
instant,  we  go  over  the  precipice.  But  the 
more  tightly  we  cling,  the  steadier  we  walk ; 
the  more  willing  we  are  to  be  humbled,  the 
more  certain  are  we  to  get  upward ;  the 
more  crosses  we  bear  for  Christ,  the  lighter 
will  be  our  hearts;  and  by  and  by  we 
shall  reach  that  gate  of  pearl,  the  opening 
of  which  will  unfold  to  us  the  everlast- 
ing flood  of  glory.  These  are  among 
the   thoudits  which   came  into  my  mind 


GOD'S   UNFOLDINGS. 


67 


as  I  have  sat  to-day  in  Christ's  school, 
while  some  of  the  scholars  around  me  have 
been  singing ;  but,  alas !  some  others  are 
sobbing  and  weeping. 


CHRIST  SHEPHERDING   HIS   FLOCK. 


/^NE  of  the  most  beautiful  improve- 
^-^  ments  of  the  new  Revision  of  the  Tes- 
tament is  that  which  makes  the  seventeenth 
verse  of  the  seventh  chapter  of  the  Revela- 
tion to  read  thus :  "  The  Lamb  which  is  in 
the  midst  of  the  throne  s/ia/l  be  their  Shep- 
herd, and  shall  guide  them  unto  fountains 
of  waters  of  life."  This  carries  on  into  the 
heavenly  world  one  of  the  most  tender  and 
profound  relations  which  Jesus  bears  to 
His  redeemed  followers.  To  us,  in  our 
land  and  times,  this  Oriental  figure  loses 
much  of  the  vividness  that  it  has  to  one 
who  visits  Palestine  and  sees  a  Judaean  shep- 
herd among  his  flock.  He  is  the  master 
of  a  household  of  sheep,  —  as    much  at- 


CHRIST  SHEPHERDING  HIS  FLOCK,       69 

tached  to  his  fleecy  friends  as  daily  inter- 
course and  nightly  watchings  and  personal 
exposures  for  them  could  make  him.  He 
searches  out  fresh  pasturage  for  them ;  if 
a  sheep  is  caught  in  a  thicket,  he  hastens 
to  rescue  it;  if  a  lamb  falls  into  a  swollen 
torrent,  he  is  at  hand  to  lift  it  out;  if  a 
wild  beast  shows  himself  at  night  near  the 
sleeping  flock,  the  shepherd  seizes  club 
or  crook  and  gives  him  battle.  Not  only 
the  savage  beast,  but  the  Bedouin  rob- 
ber must  sometimes  be  encountered.  Dr. 
Thomson,  in  his  '*  Land  and  Book,"  says 
that  one  faithful  fellow,  between  Tabor  and 
Tiberias,  instead  of  fleeing,  actually  fought 
three  Bedouins,  until  he  was  hacked  to 
pieces  with  their  kJiaiijarSy  and  died  among 
the  sheep  he  was  defending. 

*'  I  am  the  Good  Shepherd.  I  lay  down 
My  life  for  the  sheep."  This  is  the  supreme 
act  of  His  devotion  to  His  flock.  To  ana- 
lyze the  theology  of  the  Atonement  is  for 
most  believers  as  bootless  as  an  attempt 


70       CHRIST  SHEPHERDING  HIS  FLOCK. 

to  analyze  the  maternal  feeling  before  a 
mother  who  has  just  given  the  parting  kiss 
to  a  dying  daughter.  The  Christian's 
heart  understands  the  Atonement  better 
than  the  Christian's  head.  It  is  a  difficult 
doctrine  for  the  brain,  but  a  sweet  and 
simple  one  to  the  affections.  Jonathan 
Edwards  himself  could  not  apprehend  the 
Atonement  one  whit  more  clearly  or  feel 
it  more  intensely  than  the  Dairyman's 
Daughter,  when  she  sang  to  herself, — 

"  How  glorious  was  the  grace 

When  Christ  sustained  the  stroke  ! 
His  life  and  blood  the  Shepherd  pays, 
A  ransom  for  the  flock." 

True  faith  simply  believes  what  Jesus  said, 
and  rests  implicitly  on  what  Jesus  did  for 
us  and  will  do  for  us  to  the  end.  This  is 
the  core  of  my  practical  theology,  and  so 
it  is  with  millions  of  others.  All  we  were 
but  sheep  going  astray,  and  God  hath  laid 
on  Him,  the  Divine  Shepherd,  the  iniqui- 
ties of  us  all.     This  tells  the  whole  story  as 


CHRIST  SHEPHERDING  HIS  FLOCK.       7 1 

to  the  ground  of  my  hope  for  salvation ; 
this,  too,  establishes  such  a  relation  between 
me  and  my  Shepherd,  that  I  am  under 
supreme  obligation  to  follow  Him  whither- 
soever He  leadeth.  If  we  ever  expect  to 
be  guided  by  Him  to  fountains  of  waters 
of  life  in  heaven,  we  must  learn  here  to 
submit  to  His  guidance  completely. 

Three  things  our  beloved  Shepherd 
assures  us.  The  first  one  is,  *'  I  know  Mine 
own  sheep."  He  does  not  recognize  them 
by  any  church-mark,  for  some  persons 
may  hide  an  unbelieving,  unrenewed  heart 
beneath  a  false  profession ;  others,  who 
never  have  enrolled  themselves  in  any  visi- 
ble church-membership,  may  belong  to  the 
blood-bought  flock.  Jesus  recognized  the 
penitent  sinner  through  her  tears  as  dis- 
tinctly as  He  saw  through  Judas  behind  his 
treacherous  kiss.  It  is  a  precious  thought 
to  a  true  believer,  however  obscure  in  lot  or 
however  overlooked  or  misunderstood  by 
others,  —  "  My  Master  knows  me.     He  has 


72       CHRIST  SHEPHERDING  HIS  FLOCK. 

me  on  His  heart.  He  is  a  brother  to  my 
griefs.  He  knows  what  pasture  I  require ; 
yes,  and  He  understands  when  I  need  the 
chastising  stroke.  He  detects  my  sins ; 
therefore  let  me  be  watchful  against  temp- 
tation. He  sees  all  my  tears  or  my  heart- 
aches ;  therefore  let  me  be  cheerful  under 
sharp  trials." 

The  second  thing  our  Shepherd  assures 
us  is  :  *'  Mine  own  know  Me."  This  knowl- 
edge is  gained  by  a  sacred  instinct.  His 
own  know  Him  by  the  witness  of  the 
Spirit  that  witnesseth  with  their  spirits. 
How  do  I  know  my  mother?  By  some- 
body else's  description  of  her,  by  her 
picture,  by  an  analysis  of  her  mental  qual- 
ities? No;  I  know  her  by  the  instincts 
of  love.  I  have  tested  her  sweet  fidelities. 
I  believe  in  her  both  for  what  she  is  to 
me  and  what  she  has  done  for  me.  The 
sincere  Christian  has  a  heart-knowledge 
which  is  gained  by  being  sought  out  by 
the  Shepherd,  saved  by  the  Shepherd,  and 


CHRIST  SHEPHERDING  HIS  FLOCK.       73 

by  trusting  and  following  the  Shepherd. 
Of  this  experimental  knowledge  no  scoffer 
can  outwit  him  and  no  enemy  can  rob  him. 
He  has  heard  Christ's  voice  when  He 
*'  calleth  His  own  sheep  by  name  and  lead- 
eth  them  out."  No  one  can  counterfeit 
that  voice.  Sometimes  in  Palestine  or 
Syria 'a  stranger  will  try  to  mimic  the  shep- 
herd's call ;  but  the  flock  pay  no  heed  to 
it.  As  soon  as  the  genuine  voice  is  heard 
every  head  is  up  and  the  flock  is  in  motion. 
The  third  thing  that  Jesus  assures  us  is, 
that  "  He  goeth  before  His  sheep,  and  they 
follow  Him."  Ah,  what  pathways  of  trial 
He  sometimes  appoints  to  us  !  Never  has 
He  promised  us  an  easy  road  or  a  smooth 
road,  or  such  a  road  as  our  selfishness  may 
select.  He  never  consents  that  the  flock 
shall  decide  as  to  the  lot  in  which  they 
shall  be  pastured,  or  over  what  steep  hills 
He  shall  conduct  them,  or  through  what 
valleys  of  the  death-shade  they  shall  walk, 
listening  to   His  voice  through  the  dark. 


74       CHRIST  SHEPHERDING  HIS  FLOCK. 

More  than  once  faith  stumbles  and  falls, 
but  He  lifts  up  and  restores.  Sometimes 
the  burden  breaks  us  down;  but  He  says 
tenderly,  *'  Cast  that  burden  on  Me." 
Sometimes  we  cry  out  in  anguish  for  some 
lost  treasure  of  heart  and  home;  but  His 
firm  reply  is,  "Your  treasure  I  will  take 
care  of.  FOLLOW  Me."  Whom  he  loves 
He  chastens,  and  in  proportion  to  the  love 
is  the  discipline.  The  trial  that  tests 
graces  and  purifies  character  must  be  some- 
thing more  than  a  pin-scratch.  It  must  cut 
deep,  it  must  try  us ;  and  sharply  too,  or 
it  does  not  deserve  the  name.  It  is  hard 
to  be  poor  while  others  prosper;  it  is  hard 
to  lie  still  and  suffer  while  godless  mirth 
goes  laughing  by  the  door;  it  is  hard  to 
lose  our  only  wee  lamb  while  our  neigh- 
bor's fireside  is  surrounded  by  a  group  of 
rosy-cheeked  children ;  it  is  hard  to  drink 
the  very  cup  that  we  prayed  might  pass 
from  us :  but  the  loving  Shepherd  comes 
very  near  at  such  times,  and  puts  His  arm 


CHRIST  SHEPHERDING  HIS  FLOCK.       75 

about  us  and  says :  "  I  know  Mine  own, 
and  Mine  own  must  trust  Me.  If  Mine, 
then  an  heir  to  all  I  have.  Where  I  am, 
there  thou  shalt  be ;  let  not  thy  heart  be 
troubled.  What  is  poverty,  or  failure,  or 
sickness,  or  bereavement  to  thee  ?  Folloiv 
Me.  If  thy  feet  are  sore,  the  green  pas- 
tures will  be  all  the  softer  by  and  by.  If 
thy  cross  is  heavy,  I  have  borne  a  heavier 
one.  Let  Me  share  this  with  thee.  Shall 
the  disciple  be  above  his  Master?  Shall 
the  sheep  fare  better  than  the  Shepherd?" 
And  so  through  every  step  in  life  the 
Shepherd  offers  to  guide  us,  if  we  will  but 
hear  His  voice  and  follow  Him.  He  never 
promises  us  smooth  paths,  but  He  does 
promise  safe  ones.  When  we  obey  His 
voice,  we  may  often  be  called  to  severe 
toils  and  self-denials,  to  encounter  opposi- 
tion and  to  perform  services  of  love  to  the 
unlovable  and  the  thankless ;  but  we  shall 
never  be  called  to  sacrifice  a  principle  or 
commit  a  sin.     Our  Shepherd  will  never 


76       CHRIST  SHEPHERDING  HIS  F LOGIC, 

lead  us  to  a  precipice  of  error  or  into  a 
quagmire  of  doubt.  He  will  never  lead 
us  into  sensual  temptations  or  up  dizzy- 
heights  of  vain-glory.  If  we  follow  Him 
we  may  find  the  steepest  cliff  a  '*  path  of 
pleasantness"  and  the  lowest  vale  of  humil- 
iation a  highway  to  peace.  Brethren  of  the 
flock,  we  may  have  some  hard  climbing 
yet  before  we  reach  heaven.  Let  us  keep 
close  to  the  Shepherd  and  take  short  views. 
If  we  look  down,  we  may  get  dizzy ;  if  we 
look  too  far  on,  we  may  get  discouraged. 
With  steady  grasp  on  the  Great  Shepherd, 
let  our  hearts  continually  pray, — 

**  Keep  thou  my  feet ;  I  do  not  ask  to  see 
The  distant  scene ;  one  step 's  enough  for  me." 


THE   EVERLASTING  ARMS. 


/~\NE  of  the  sweetest  passages  in  the 
^^  Bible  is  this  one :  *'  Underneath  are 
the  everlasting  arms."  It  is  not  often 
preached  from ;  perhaps  because  it  is  felt 
to  be  so  much  richer  and  more  touching 
than  anything  we  ministers  can  say  about  it. 
But  what  a  vivid  idea  it  gives  of  the  Divine 
support!  The  first  idea  of  infancy  is  of 
resting  in  arms  which  maternal  love  never 
allows  to  become  weary.  Sick-room  ex- 
periences confirm  the  impression  when  we 
have  seen  a  feeble  mother  or  sister  lifted 
from  the  bed  of  pain  by  the  stronger  ones 
of  the  household.  In  the  case  of  our 
Heavenly  Father,  the  arms  are  felt,  but  n6t 
seen.     The  invisible  secret  support  comes 


78  THE  EVERLASTING  ARMS. 

to  the  soul  in  its  hours  of  weakness  or 
trouble ;  for  God  knoweth  our  feebleness, 
He  remembereth  that  we  are  dust. 

We  often  sink  very  low  under  the  weight 
of  sorrows.  Sudden  disappointments  can 
carry  us,  in  an  hour,  from  the  heights  down 
to  the  very  depths.  Props  that  we  leaned 
upon  are  stricken  away.  What  God  means 
by  it  very  often  is  just  to  bring  us  down  to 
"  the  everlasting  arms."  We  did  not  feel 
our  need  of  them  before.  We  were  "  mak- 
ing flesh  our  arm,"  and  relying  on  human 
comforts  or  resources.  When  my  little  boy 
dashes  off  to  his  play,  brimful  of  glee,  he 
does  not  stop  to  think  much  about  his  pa- 
rents ;  but  let  him  be  taken  suddenly  sick, 
,o*r  an  accident  befall  him,  his  first  thought 
is  to  go  to  his  mother.  God  often  lays  His 
hand  heavily  upon  us  to  remind  us  that 
we  have  a .  Father.     When  my  neighbor 

A broke  in  business,  and  twenty-four 

hours  made  him  a  bankrupt,  he  came  home, 
saying  to   himself,    **  Well,  my   money  is 


THE  EVERLASTING  ARMS.  79 

gone,  but  Jesus  is  left."  He  did  not 
merely  come  down  to  ''  hard  pan,"  he  came 
to  something  far  more  solid,  —  to  the  ever- 
lasting arms.  When  another  friend  laid  her 
beautiful  boy  in  his  coffin,  after  the  scarlet- 
fever  had  done  its  worst,  she  laid  her  own 
sorrowful  heart  upon  the  everlasting  arms. 
The  dear  little  sleeper  was  there  already. 
The  Shepherd  had  His  lamb. 

There  is  something  about  deep  sorrow 
that  tends  to  wake  up  the  ^////<3^- feeling  in  all 
of  us.  A  man  of  giant  intellect  becomes 
like  a  little-  child  when  a  great  grief  smites 
him,  or  when  a  grave  opens  beneath  his 
bedroom  or  his  fireside.  I  have  seen  a 
stout  sailor,  who  laughed  at  the  tempest, 
come  home  when  he  was  sick,  and  let  his 
old  mother  nurse  him  as  if  he  were  a  baby. 
He  was  willing  to  lean  on  the  arms  that  had 
never  failed  him.  So  a  Christian  in  the 
time  of  trouble  is  brought  to  this  child- 
_ feeling.  He  wants  to  lean  somewhere,  to 
talk  to  somebody,  to  have  somebody  love 


8o  THE  EVERLASTING  ARMS. 

him  and  hold  him  up.  His  extremity  be- 
comes  God's  opportunity.  Then  his  hum- 
bled, broken  spirit  cries  out, — 

"  O  Lord,  a  little  helpless  child 

Comes  to  Thee  this  day  for  rest; 
Take  me,  fold  me  in  Thy  arms, 
Hold  my  head  upon  Thy  breast." 

One  great  purpose  in  all  affliction  is  to 
bring  us  down  to  the  everlasting  arms. 
What  new  strength  and  peace  it  gives  us  to 
feel  them  underneath  us  !  We  know  that, 
far  as  we  may  have  sunk,  we  cannot  go  any 
farther.  Those  mighty  arms  can  not  only 
hold  us,  they  can  lift  us  up.  They  can 
carry  us  along.  Faith,  in  its  essence,  is 
simply  a  resting  on  the  everlasting  arms. 
It  is  trusting  them,  and  not  our  own  weak- 
ness. The  sublime  act  of  Jesus  as  our  Re- 
deemer was  to  descend  to  the  lowest  depths 
of  human  depravity  and  guilt,  and  to  bring 
up  His  redeemed  ones  from  that  horrible 
pit  in  His  loving  arms.  Faith  is  just  the 
clinging  to  those  arms,  and  nothing  more. 


THE  EVERLASTING  ARMS.  8 1 

This  first  lesson  in  conversion  is  to  be 
practised  and  repeated  all  through  the  sub- 
sequent Christian  life.  To  endeavor  to  lift 
our  own  souls  by  our  own  strength,  is  as 
absurd  as  to  attempt  to  lift  our  bodies  by- 
grasping  hold  of  our  own  clothes.  The 
lift  must  come  from  God.  Faith  cries  out, 
"  O  my  Lord,  Thou  hast  a  mighty  arm ; 
hold  me  up."  The  response  from  heaven 
is,  "  I  have  found  thee ;  Mine  arm  shall 
strengthen  thee;  on  My  arm  shalt  thou 
trust." 

Here  lies  the  very  core  of  the  doctrine  of 
''  Assurance."  It  simply  means  that  I  can 
feel,  and  every  Christian  believer  can  feel 
perfectly  sure  that  the  everlasting  arms  will 
never  break  and  never  fail  us.  I  am  not 
so  sure  that  in  some  moment  of  wayward- 
ness, or  pride,  or  self-sufficiency,  I  may  not 
forsake  those  arms,  and  trust  to  my  own 
wretched  weakness.  Then  the  curse  which 
God  has  pronounced  on  those  who  depart 
from    Him   and   ''make  flesh  their   arm" 

6 


82  THE  EVERLASTING  ARMS. 

is  certain  to  come  upon  me.  I  learn  from 
bitter  experience  what  a  pitiable  object 
even  a  Christian  can  be  when  he  has  for- 
saken the  Living  Fountain,  and  has  nothing 
left  but  his  own  broken  cistern.  God's 
Word  is  full  of  precious  encouragement 
to  faith,  but  it  contains  terrible  warnings 
against  presumption  and  self-confidence. 
And  while  Presumption  is  swinging  on  its 
spider's  web  over  the  perilous  precipice, 
Faith  calmly  says,  — 

"  All  my  trust  on  Thee  is  stayed, 
All  my  help  from  Thee  I  bring." 

While  Unbelief  is  floundering  through 
the  darkness,  or  sinking  in  the  waves  of 
despair.  Faith  triumphantly  sings,  — 

"  Safe  in  the  arms  of  Jesus, 
Safe  on  His  gentle  breast, 
Here,  by  His  love  o'ershadowed, 
Sweetly  my  soul  doth  rest." 

This  is  the  theology  for  times  of  tempta- 
tion.    Such  times  are  sure  to  come.     They 


THE  EVERLASTING  ARMS.  83 

are  the  testing  processes.  A  late  Sunday's 
equinoctial  gale  tested  every  tree  in  tlie 
forest;  only  the  rotten  ones  came  down. 
When  we  read  or  hear  how  some  professed 
Christian  has  turned  defaulter,  or  lapsed 
into  drunkenness,  or  slipped  from  the  com- 
munion-table into  open  disgrace,  it  simply 
means  that  a  human  arm  has  broken.  The 
man  had  forsaken  the  everlasting  arms. 
David  did  it  once,  and  fell.  Daniel  did  not 
do  it,  and  he  stood.  "  The  Lord  knoweth 
how  to  deliver  the  godly  out  of  tempta- 
tions." 

This  is  a  precious  theology,  this  theol- 
ogy of  trust,  for  the  sick-room.  We  called 
in  this  week  to  visit  one  of  Christ's  suffer- 
ing flock.  We  talked  for  a  time  about  the 
ordinary  consolations  for  such  cases  as 
hers.  Presently  we  said,  ''  There  is  a  sweet 
text  that  has  been  running  in  our  mind  for 
days  past :  it  is  this,  '  Underneath  are  the 
everlasting  arms.' "  The  tears  came  in  a 
moment;    that   precious   passage  went   to 


84 


THE  EVERLASTING  ARMS. 


the  right  spot;  it  did  good  like  a  medi- 
cine ;  and  our  suffering  friend  lay  more 
comfortable  on  that  bed  of  pain  from  feel- 
ing that  underneath  her  were  the  everlast- 
ing arms.  Reader,  may  they  be  under  thy 
head  in  the  dying  hour ! 


^^^©••i^ 


WORDS  FOR  THE  WEARY. 


/^PENING  into  one  of  those  rich  chap- 
^^  ters  of  Isaiah,  that  are  as  full  of  nour- 
ishment as  a  wheat-field,  our  eye  lighted 
upon  this  passage :  *'  The  Lord  God  hath 
given  me  the  tongue  of  the  learned,  that  I 
should  know  how  to  speak  a  word  in  season 
to  him  that  is  weary."  This  set  us  to  think- 
ing about  the  restfiilness  of  God's  Word 
and  of  Christ's  supporting  grace.  A  very 
different  thing  is  this  from  dreamy  indo- 
lence. God  abhors  the  idle  man  as  a 
monster,  and  laziness  as  a  cardinal  sin. 
But  rest  is  not  only  refreshing,  but  invigo- 
rating. The  farmer's  noonday  hour  under 
the  shady  tree  refits  him  for  the  hot  after- 
noon's  toil  in  the  harvest-field.     Nothing 


86  WORDS  FOR   THE   WEARY, 

fits  an  army  for  battle  like  a  good  night's 
sleep  and  a  full  morning  meal.  If  some 
**  terrible  toilers "  would  oftener  halt  and 
rest,  they  would  live  the  longer. 

All  around  us  are  multitudes  of  weary 
people.  They  are  tired  out  with  life's  daily 
battle,  with  bearing  the  heat  and  burden  of 
the  day.  Some  carry  a  great  load  of  care 
as  to  how  they  shall  make  both  ends  meet, 
and  how  they  shall  "  foot "  the  bills  for 
rent,  food,  and  raiment.  Others  are  worn 
out  with  anxieties.  A  burden  of  spiritual 
despondency  weighs  down  **  Brother  Little- 
Faith  "  and  ''  Mrs.  Much-Afraid."  Another 
one  has  grown  tired  of  waiting  for  success 
in  his  labors,  and  is  tempted  to  throw  down 
his  seed-bag  and  sickle  in  sheer  despair. 
Others  still  are  weary  of  waiting  for  recog- 
nized answers  to  prayer. 

For  all  these  tired  and  burdened  hearts 
Jesus,  the  rehef-bringer,  has  His  word  in 
season.  To  the  Christian  with  a  small 
purse  He  says :  **  Your  life  consisteth  not 


WORDS  FOR   THE   WEARY.  8/ 

in  the  abundance  of  things  ye  possess.  I 
counsel  thee  to  buy  of  Me  gold  tried  in  the 
fire,  that  thou  mayest  be  rich.  At  My  right 
hand  are  treasures  for  evermore."  Only 
think  how  rich  a  man  is  who  has  a  clean 
conscience  here  and  heaven  hereafter  !  To 
the  doubting  and  desponding  Jesus  says : 
"  Fear  not,  little  flock ;  for  it  is  my  Father's 
good  pleasure  to  give  you  the  kingdom." 
There  is  a  wonderful  restfulness  for  worried 
hearts  in  this  single  assurance,  "  Lo,  I  am 
with  you  alway."  This  may  be  called 
Christ's  richest  and  sweetest  promise.  The 
believer  who  lives  on  that  promise  can  often 
sing,  — 

"  I  am  never  lonely 

While  Jesus  standeth  by ; 
His  presence  always  cheers  me, 
I  know  that  He  is  nigh. 

"  Friendless  ?    No,  not  friendless, 
For  Jesus  is  my  friend ; 
I  change,  but  He  remaineth 
A  Brother  to  the  end. 


88  WORDS  FOR    THE    WEARY. 

"  Tired  ?    No,  not  tired  ; 

While  leaning  on  His  breast, 
My  soul  hath  full  enjoyment 
Of  His  eternal  rest." 

The  most  common  cause  of  weariness  is 
the  attempt  to  carry  an  overload  of  care. 
And  this  is  not  a  wise  forethought  for  the 
future  or  a  proper  providence  for  Hfe's 
"  rainy  day."  It  is  sheer  worry.  The  word 
in  season  for  such  overloaded  Christians, 
who  toil  along  life's  highway  like  jaded 
pack-horses,  is  this :  "  Cast  thy  burden  on 
the  Lord,  and  He  shall  sustain  thee."  If 
we  will  only  drop  everything  that  is  sinful 
and  superfluous  in  the  shape  of  worry.  He 
will  enable  us  to  carry  the  legitimate  load. 
One  more  word  for  the  weary  is,  *'  Cast 
your  care  on  Him,  for  He  careth  for  you." 
The  literal  meaning  of  this  tonic  text  is : 
He  has  you  on  His  heart.  What  an  in- 
spiring, gladdening  thought !  The  infinite 
God  from  His  everlasting  throne  has  poor 
little  sinful  me  on  His  divine  heart!     My 


WORDS  FOR   THE   WEARY.  89 

big  load  is  not  a  feather  to  Him.  He  knows 
my  frame ;  He  remembers  that  I  am  dust. 
Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so 
the  Lord  pitieth  us  poor  weaklings.  He 
says  to  us,  *'  Give  me  your  burdens."  He 
who  piloted  Noah  and  all  the  precious 
freight  in  the  ark,  who  supplied  the  widow's 
waning  cruse  of  oil,  who  put  Peter  to 
sleep  in  the  dungeon  and  calmed  Paul 
in  the  roaring  tempest, — He  says  to  me, 
''  Roll  your  anxieties  over  on  Me.  I  have 
you  on  My  heart."  What  fools  we  are  when 
we  strap  the  load  more  tightly,  and  deter- 
mine that  nobody  shall  carry  it  but  our- 
selves ! 

Suppose  that  a  weary,  footsore  traveller 
were  trudging  along  an  up-hill  road  on  a 
sultry  day,  and  a  wagon  overtakes  him. 
The  kind  driver  calls  out:  *' Ho !  my 
friend,  you  look  tired.  Throw  that  pack 
into  my  wagon ;  I  am  going  your  way." 
But  the  silly  wayfarer,  eying  him  suspi- 
ciously, as  if  he  wished  to  steal  it,  churl- 


90  WORDS  FOR   THE   WEARY. 

ishly  replies,  "  Go  along  with  you.  I  can 
carry  my  own  luggage."  We  laugh  at 
this  obstinate  folly,  and  then  repeat  the 
same  insane  sin  against  the  God  of  love. 

When  God  says  to  us,  "  Give  Me  your 
load,  and  I  will  help  you,"  He  does  not  re- 
lease us  from  our  share  of  duty.  No  more 
does  the  atoning  Saviour  when  He  bears 
the  guilt  ^nd  penalty  of  our  sins,  release  us 
from  repentance  of  those  sins  or  from  obey- 
ing His  commandments.  God's  offer  is  to 
lighten  our  loads  by  putting  His  grace  into 
our  hearts  and  underneath  the  load.  He 
then  becomes  our  strength.  His  all-suffi- 
cient grace  is  made  perfect  in  our  weakness, 
so  that  God  really  carries  the  load.  It  was 
the  Christ  m  Paul  who  defied  Nero  and 
conquered  the  devil. 

This  divine  doctrine  of  trust  is  a  won- 
derfully restful  one  to  weary  disciple^.  It 
takes  the  tire  out  of  the  heart.  As  the 
infant  drops  over  on  mother's  bosom  into 
soft  repose,  so  Faith  rests  its  weary  head  on 


WORDS  FOR    THE    WEARY.  91 

Jesus.  He  giveth  His  beloved  sleep,  so 
that  they  may  wake  up  refreshed  for  their 
appointed  work. 

It  is  not  honest  work  that  really  wears 
any  Christian  out.  It  is  the  ague-fit  of 
worry  that  consumes  strength  and  furrows 
the  cheek  and  brings  on  decrepitude.  That 
giant  of  Jesus  Christ  who  drew  the  Gospel 
chariot  from  Jerusalem  to  Rome,  and  had 
the  care  of  all  the  churches  on  his  great 
heart,  never  complained  of  being  tired. 
The  secret  was  that  he  never  chafed  his 
powers  with  a  moment's  worry.  He  was 
doing  God's  work,  and  he  left  God  to  be 
responsible  for  results.  He  knew  whom  he 
believed,  and  felt  perfectly  sure  that  all 
things  work  together  for  good  to  them  who 
love  the  Lord  Jesus. 

Just  a  word,  in  closing,  to  those  who  are 
getting  tired  of  a  life  of  sin  and  of  serving 
Satan.  Friends,  you  are  serving  a  hard 
master.  His  wages  are  death.  Again  and 
again    you   have   become    disgusted   with 


92  WOI^DS  FOR   THE    WEARY. 

yourselves  as  leading  a  frivolous,  foolish 
life  for  an  immortal  being.  All  the  pleas- 
ures you  have  ever  paid  so  dearly  for,  all 
the  accumulations  you  have  earned,  do  not 
satisfy  you.  There  is  a  hungry,  aching 
spot  in  your  soul.  There  comes  many  a 
moment  in  which  you  wish  you  had  some- 
thing solider,  sweeter,  stronger,  something 
to  live  for  and  to  die  by.  You  need  Jesus 
Christ !  Wherefore  do  ye  spend  your  labor 
for  that  which  satisfieth  not?  Open  your 
weary  ear  to  that  voice  of  His  love :  "  Come 
unto  Me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy 
laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest."  Learn  of 
Him;  live  for  Him;  labor  for  Him.  Life 
will  glow  with  a  new  charm ;  your  soul 
will  then  mount  as  with  an  eagle's  wing; 
you  will  run,  and  never  weary,  you  will 
walk  with  Jesus,  and  never  faint. 


THE  LORD   REIGNETH. 


TT  7HAT  a  magnificent  outburst  of  loy- 
^  '  alty  opens  the  ninety-third  psalm  ! 
**The  Lord  reigneth,  He  is  clothed  with 
majesty;  the  Lord  is  clothed  with  strength, 
wherewith  He  hath  girded  Himself.  Thy 
throne  is  established  of  old :  Thou  art 
from  everlasting."  Here  we  have  the 
empire  of  love,  the  royal  robe,  the  girdle 
of  omnipotence,  and  the  immovable  throne. 
The  psalmist  would  seem  to  have  been 
thinking  of  the  problems  of  life,  its  dark 
things  and  its  mysteries.  So  many  things 
seemed  irreconcilable  with  the  Divine 
goodness  that  he  admits  that  "  clouds  and 
darkness  are  round  about  Him."  But  this 
truth  flashes  out  through  the  clouds,  —  the 


94  THE  LORD  REIGN ETH. 

Lord  reigns.  That  is  enough.  He  does 
not  try  to  pry  into  the  council-chamber. 
He  cannot  get  behind  the  cloud.  But  love 
reigns  there,  and  justice  and  righteousness 
are  the  foundations  of  that  throne. 

Not  one  of  us  has  any  trouble  in  accept- 
ing this  doctrine  of  God's  sovereignty  as 
long  as  things  go  to  our  liking.  We  are 
perfectly  satisfied  to  let  God  have  His  way 
as  long  as  He  does  not  cross  us.  We  all 
believe  in  His  administration,  and  are 
ready  (as  Dr.  Finney  used  to  say)  to 
''vote  God  in  as  our  governor  "'as  long  as 
business  thrives  and  crops  are  plentiful 
and  every  one  around  our  own  table  is 
hearty  and  happy.  As  long  as  His  mer- 
cies are  poured  out  in  wine,  we  drink  of 
them  gladly ;  but  as  soon  as  the  same  cup 
begins  to  taste  of  wormwood,  we  push  it 
away  in  disgust,  or  cry  out  piteously, 
"  Let  this  cup  pass  from  me."  Any  other 
cup  we  could  have  swallowed,  but  not  this 
one.     If  God  had  only  tried  us  with  the 


THE  LORD  REIGNETH.  95 

loss  of  our  property  and  spared  us  our 
health,  we  could  have  borne  it;  or  if  He 
had  sent  the  sickness  at  some  other  time, 
we  would  not  murmur  so;  or  if  His  blow 
had  struck  us  somewhere  else  but  in  our 
very  tenderest  spot,  we  should  not  cry  out 
so  bitterly.  In  short,  if  God  had  only  con- 
sulted us  as  to  the  medicine  we  should 
take  and  as  to  the  branch  His  pruning- 
knife  should  lop  off,  we  would  have  been 
perfectly  submissive.  Every  pastor  en- 
counters this  kind  of  faith  in  God's  sover- 
eignty wherever  he  goes.  If  the  Lord 
governed  so  as  to  please  everybody,  there 
would  not  be  a  rebel  in  all  His  universe. 

As  some  of  our  readers  may  just  now  be 
smarting  under  God's  strokes  of  discipline 
or  letting  their  hearts  fester  into  rebellion, 
let  us  whisper  a  few  truths  into  their  ears. 
The  first  is  that  our  Heavenly  Father 
never  afflicts  one  of  His  children  but  for  a 
wise  purpose.  He  never  strikes  at  random 
or  deals  one  blow  in  cruelty.     Sometimes 


96  THE  LORD  REIGNETH. 

His  chastisements  are  punitive.  Christians 
deserve  punishment  as  truly  as  ungodly 
blasphemers  do  when  they  violate  God's 
laws.  A  lazy  Christian  will  come  to  want 
as  soon  as  a  lazy  profligate.  If  as  holy  a 
man  as  Dr.  Payson  breaks  some  of  God's 
sanitary  regulations  by  overworking  his 
nervous  system  and  allowing  himself  no 
recreations,  he  must  expect  shattered 
nerves  and  early  paralysis.  One  of  the 
excellences  of  God's  government  is  that 
He  never  alters  His  laws  to  suit  special 
cases.  They  are  unchangeable.  And  I 
have  heard  of  a  great  many  "■  mysterious 
providences  "  that  had  in  them  no  mys- 
tery at  all.  They  were  simply  righteous 
retributions.  There  is  no  mystery  when  a 
bad  manager,  even  though  he  be  a  Chris- 
tian, fails  in  business,  or  when  a  Christian 
merchant  that  has  robbed  himself  of  indis- 
pensable rest  is  stricken  with  softening  of 
the  brain.  A  thousand  so-called  ''provi- 
dences"  might  have   been  prevented   by 


THE  LORD  REIGNETH.  97 

the  exercise  of  a  little  common  sense  and 
conscience.  If  we  break  God's  command- 
ments, we  must  pay  the  penalty. 

Sometimes  our  Sovereign  sends  afflic- 
tions that  are  preventive.  They  save  us 
from  something  worse.  As  the  headache 
and  the  self-loathing  that  follow  a  first 
bottle  are  intended  to  warn  us  against 
touching  another,  so  God  often  puts  a 
chastisement  at  the  entrance  to  a  path  of 
danger.  There  is  even  a  conserving  influ- 
ence in  some  severe  trials,  just  as  the  early 
snows  that  are  now  falling  on  our  northern 
hills  will  conserve  the  winter  wheat.  I  can 
recall  more  than  one  chilling  providence 
which  came  in  time  to  keep  me  from  losing 
what  I  could  not  afford  to  spare. 

Still  other  afflictions  are  sent  to  pitrify 
character.  God  sits  as  a  refiner  beside 
His  furnace.  He  heats  it  until  the  metal 
melts  and  the  dross  runs  away.  He  keep- 
eth  His  silver  in  the  furnace  until  He  can 
see  His  own   face    reflected  in  the   clear 

7 


98  THE  LORD  REIGNETH. 

metal  of  the  heart  as  in  a  mirror.  Then 
the  affliction  has  done  its  work.  God  has 
made  the  vessel  *'  unto  His  own  honor." 
There  is  such  a  wretched  amount  of  self- 
will  and  pride  and  covetousness  and  un- 
belief even  in  undoubted  Christians,  that 
they  require  the  fining-pot  very  often. 
Many  a  man  and  woman  has  been  the 
worse  for  want  of  this  kind  of  discipline. 

It  is  a  wholesome  process  to  be  "  taken 
down "  occasionally.  The  grass  in  every 
lawn  requires  to  be  taken  down  by  a 
mower.  The  oftener  it  is  mowed  the 
richer  and  the  thicker  is  the  growth.  The 
lawn  never  looks  so  beautiful  as  after  the 
keen-edged  cutter  has  gone  over  it.  I 
have  observed  that  some  Christians  in  my 
charge  have  neve-r  appeared  so  attractive 
in  their  humility  and  heavenly-mindedness 
as  when  God's  mowing-machine  has  been 
passed  over  them.  The  great  Apostle's 
career,  as  I  read  it  in  the  masterly  consec- 
utive narrative  of  Canon  Farrar,  showed  in 


THE  LORD  REIGNETH.  99 

almost  every  page  the  effects  of  the  scythe. 
There  was  prodigious  growth  from  the 
roots.  Yet  no  man  exalted  God's  sover- 
eignty more  heartily  than  Paul.  He  gloried 
even  in  the  tribulations  which  God  per- 
mitted him  to  suffer,  knowing  that  trib- 
ulation worketh  patience,  and  patience 
experience,  and  experience  hope.  This  too 
he  knew,  that  in  all  this  process  the  love 
of  God  was  shed  abroad  in  his  heart  by  the 
Holy  Ghost  given  unto  him. 

We  have  discussed  in  this  short  paper 
just  one  aspect  of  God's  government, 
namely,  His  personal  rule  of  our  own  per- 
sonal lives  and  lot.  His  sovereignty  on  the 
grander  scale  of  the  natural  world  and  of 
His  vast  spiritual  kingdom  we  leave  out  of 
sight.  It  is  a  blessed  thought  that  the 
Lord  reigneth  over  little  short-lived  me  as 
truly  as  over  the  whole  Church  or  the 
whole  universe.  He  numbereth  the  hairs 
of  my  head,  and  ordereth  my  steps.  Let  it 
be  my  daily  and  devoutest  aim  to  lay  the 


lOO  THE  LORD  REIGN ETH. 

plan  of  my  life  on  God's  plan.  If  His  im- 
movable laws  push  me  back  and  hedge  me 
in  from  sin,  then  all  the  better.  If  His 
sharp  knife  prunes  me,  then  I  am  only  the 
more  sure  that  He  loves  me.  Afflictions 
are  like  the  cactus  plant  of  His  making,  very 
unsightly  and  full  of  thorns,  but  they  bear 
marvellous  flowers  in  their  time.  God's 
government  is  the  solidest  ground  of  my 
confidence  and  joy.  It  underlies  all  my 
theology,  and  is  the  very  rock-bed  on 
which  I  rest  my  salvation.  While  Jeho- 
vah reigns  let  me  rejoice  to  obey  Him. 
To  oppose  Hirn  is  to  invite  His  retribu- 
tions, and  that  means  —  Hell !  To  submit 
to  Him  is  to  win  His  favor  and  to  secure 
His  love,  and  that  means  —  Heaven  !  The 
nearer  we  get  to  the  throne  the  more 
loudly  shall  we  sing,  **The  Lord  God  om- 
nipotent reigneth ! "  ^ 


UP  TO  THE   HILLS. 


'T^HE  one  hundred  and  twenty-first  psalm 
-*-  is  one  of  the  most  soul-inspiring  in 
the  whole  psalter.  It  is  named  "  a  song  of 
degrees,"  that  is,  a  song  of  ascents,  leading 
from  the  lower  up  to  the  higher.  Whether 
this  was  originally  intended  as  a  musical 
expression  or  as  a  description  of  the  ascent 
to  the  sacred  mount  in  Jerusalem,  it  happily 
describes  the  spiritual  idea  of  the  psalm. 
The  key-note  is  in  the  first  verse.  ''  I  will 
lift  up  mine  eyes  unto  the  hills  [or  moun- 
tains] from  whence  cometh  my  help.  My 
help  is  from  the  Lord,  which  made  heaven 
and  earth."  The  grand  idea  is  that  we 
must  look  higher  if  we  would  live  higher. 


102  UP   TO   THE  HILLS, 

We   must   have   help  from   heaven  if  we 
would  reach  heaven. 

In  things  material  and  in  things  spiritual 
not  one  of  us  is  created  to  entire  indepen- 
dence. From  infancy,  when  we  depend  on 
a  mother's  milk  for  nourishment,  and  child- 
hood, when  we  depend  on  our  teachers 
for  instruction,  clear  through  the  activities 
of  manhood,  which  require  the  aid  of  cus- 
tomers and  clients  in  order  to  prosper,  we 
cannot  ever  live  a  year  in  and  by  ourselves. 
Still  more  true  is  it  that  our  moral  life  is 
one  of  weakness  and  of  want.  The  impor- 
tant question  is:  Where  shall  we  find  the 
supplies  for  the  soul's  wants  and  the  help 
for  the  soul's  weakness?  And  the  fatal 
mistake  so  often  made  is  that  the  soul  does 
not  look  high  enough  to  secure  substantial 
help  and  to  insure  a  complete  victory.  For 
example,  we  are  exposed  to  perpetual 
temptations,  which  draw  us  toward  sin  and 
thus  tend  to  drag  us  downward.  How  are 
we  to  meet  them  ? 


UP   TO    THE  HILLS.  I03 

We  may  employ  arguments  that  are 
wholly  of  the  earth,  earthy.  They  have  no 
motives  that  are  not  essentially  selfish ; 
they  do  not  recognize  anything  higher  than 
self-interest,  or  appeal  to  any  supernatu- 
ral power  for  aid.  Here  is  a  young  man 
of  ardent  temperament,  who  is  strongly 
tempted  to  sensual  indulgence.  He  may 
say  to  himself:  ''  This  will  not  pay  for  the 
risks.  I  shall  injure  my  health;  I  shall 
stain  the  reputation  of  another;  I  may  be 
discovered  and  disgraced."  Assuredly  the 
young  Hebrew  who  was  put  to  the  strain 
of  a  tremendous  temptation  in  the  house  of 
Potiphar  laid  hold  of  vastly  higher  motives 
than  these.  He  lifted  his  eyes  to  the  hills 
and  made  his  appeal  to  God.  *'  How  can 
I  do  this  great  wickedness,"  he  cries  out, 
"and  sin  against  God?"  That  appeal 
lashed  him,  as  it  were,  to  the  everlasting 
throne,  and  divine  grace  made  him  tempta- 
tion-proof. 

Here  is  the  only  safeguard  under   the 


104  ^P   T'O    THE  HILLS. 

pressure  of  assaults  against  conscience  or 
of  powerful  enticements  to  some  sinful  self- 
gratification.  The  young  man  who  is  too 
fond  of  the  champagne-glass  needs  some- 
thing more  than  the  conviction  that  the 
bottle  is  endangering  his  health  and  his 
pocket,  in  order  to  keep  him  abstinent.  He 
must  recognize  sin,  as  well  as  sorrow,  in 
the  sting  which  the  "  viper  in  the  glass  " 
inflicts,  and  seek  his  help  from  the  High- 
est. That  is  no  trustworthy  honesty  which 
spurns  the  enticement  to  fraud  simply  be- 
cause detection  may  bring  disgrace,  because 
the  man  may  persuade  himself  that  in  his 
circumstances  detection  is  impossible.  He 
is  only  safe  when  he  looks  up  from  these 
paltry  motives,  —  up  high  enough  to  see 
God.  In  these  days,  when  the  press  teems 
with  obituaries  of  lost  characters,  it  ought  to 
be  known  that  the  only  principle  which  can 
hold  a  merchant,  or  a  cashier,  or  an  ac- 
countant, is  a  Bible-conscience,  which  draws 
its  strength  from  the  everlasting  hills  of 
Right. 


UP   TO    THE  HILLS.  105 

There  are  some  of  us  who  have  known 
what  it  is  to  drink  bitter  draughts  of  afflic- 
tion, and  to  have  the  four  corners  of  our 
house  smitten  by  a  terrible  sorrow.  At 
such  times,  how  hollow  and  worthless  were 
many  of  the  stereotyped  prescriptions  for 
comfort !  **  Time  must  do  its  work,"  was 
one  of  them.  As  if  time  could  bring  back 
the  dead,  or  cruelly  eradicate  the  beloved 
image  from  the  memory  !  "  Travel,"  is  an- 
other of  these  quack  recommendations  for 
a  wounded  spirit.  Just  as  if  God  had  ever 
made  an  Atlantic  wide  enough  to  carry  us 
out  of  the  reach  of  heart-breaking  misery ! 
Wretched  comforters  are  they  all.  The 
suffering  heart  heeds  not  the  voice  of  such 
charmers,  charm  they  never  so  wisely. 
Never,  never  have  I  been  able  to  gain  one 
ray  of  genuine  consolation  until  I  lifted  my 
eyes  unto  the  hills  from  whence  cometh 
the  Almighty  help.  As  soon  as  I  have 
begun  to  taste  of  God's  exceeding  great  and 
precious  promises  my  strength  has  begun 


I06  UP   TO    THE  HILLS. 

to  revive.  As  soon  as  His  everlasting  arm 
got  hold  around  me  the  burden  grew  lighter, 
—  yea,  it  carried  me  and  the  load  likewise. 
God  opened  to  me  paths  of  usefulness 
which  were  in  the  line  of  His  service,  and 
also  of  blessings  to  my  fellow-men.  And  so 
help  flowed  down  to  me  from  the  hills  like 
the  streams  that  make  music  from  the 
precipices  to  one  who  climbs  the  VVenzern 
Alp. 

This  sublime  passage  from  the  hundred 
and  twenty-first  psalm  throws  its  sugges- 
tive side-light  on  the  question  why  many 
of  my  readers  have  never. obtained  a  solid 
and  satisfactory  religious  hope.  You  will 
admit  in  your  honest  hours  that  you  are 
not  what  you  ought  to  be,  nor  what  you 
yet  intend  to  be.  You  admit  that  you 
are  sinners.  You  have  no  expectation  of 
being  lost  to  all  eternity.  Certain  steps 
you  have  taken  in  past  times,  but  they  all 
left  you  as  low  down  as  you  started.  Both 
your    motives   and    your    methods    were 


UP    TO    THE  HILLS.  .    10/ 

pitched  too  low.  All  attempts  at  self-salva- 
tion were  as  futile  as  would  be  the  attempt 
to  lift  yourself  by  grasping  hold  of  your 
own  shoes.  Even  religious  services  failed 
to  bring  you  any  substantial  change  of 
heart  and  character,  because  you  did  not 
get  your  eye  or  thought  above  them.  The 
best  sermon  ever  preached  is  only  a  cup 
after  all.  It  may  bring  the  water,  but  the 
cup  itself  cannot  quench  thirst. 

What  you  need  is  to  lift  your  eyes  above 
your  sinful,  needy  self,  above  your  church- 
goings  and  other  religious  observances, 
above  every  one  and  everything,  to  the 
only  mountain  whence  cometh  your  help. 
That  mountain  is  Calvary.  The  crucified 
and  now  living  Son  of  God  is  the  object  on 
which  you  must  fix  your  eye.  As  a  living 
man,  you  need  a  living  Christ.  You  want 
not  a  system  of  doctrine,  but  a  personal 
Saviour.  You  need  some  one  not  only  to 
lay  your  hand  upon,  but  one  who  can 
return  the    grasp  of  that  hand.     The  lift 


I08  UP   TO   THE  HILLS. 

must  come  from  Him.  The  new  life  must 
come  from  Him.  *'  His  blood  cleanseth 
from  all  sin "  is  a  mere  abstract  truth 
until  you  come  up  to  that  atoning  blood 
for  yourself  Submit  to  its  cleansing,  as 
Naaman  submitted  to  be  washed  in  Jordan. 
"A  living  trust  in  Jesus  has  power  unto 
salvation  only  because  it  is  the  means  by 
which  the  saving  power  of  God  may  come 
into  your  heart."  Faith  is  not  a  mere  in- 
tellectual opinion.  It  is  a  heart  transaction, 
by  which  you  lay  hold  on  Jesus  and  Jesus 
saves.  His  sacrifice  for  sin  avails  for  you ; 
His  strength  becomes  yours ;  His  example 
teaches  you  how  to  live  your  own  daily 
life ;  His  Spirit  comes  to  dwell  within  you ; 
His  armor  protects  you ;  and  His  service 
becomes  the  inspiration  of  your  whole 
being.  When  you  ascend  into  Christ  you 
reach  a  loftier,  purer  atmosphere.  Security 
is  gained  up  there  as  in  a  stronghold  on  a 
cliff.  Six  times  over  in  this  psalm  the  in- 
spired penman  tells  us  how  the  Lord  is  thy 


UP   TO    THE  HILLS.  JOQ 

keeper,  and  how  He  shall  preserve  thy  soul 
to  all  eternity.  My  friend,  lift  your  eyes 
upward.  Let  your  voice  go  up  in  fervent 
prayer  to  the  everlasting  hills.  Put  your 
feet  firmly  on  the  path  that  leads  straight 
toward  God.  When  you  reach  Him  in  this 
world  you  have  reached  heaven  in  the 
next  world. 


RIGHT  SEEING. 


•'  nPHOU  hast  well  seen."  These  were 
"*■  God's  words  to  Jeremiah  when  He 
called  him  to  his  life-work  as  a  "  seer  "  or 
prophet  to  the  people  of  Israel.  He  puts 
to  the  modest,  self-distrustful  young  man 
the  question,  ''What  seest  thou?"  Jere- 
miah repHes,  '*  I  see  a  rod  of  an  almond 
tree."  This  is  just  what  the  Lord  meant 
that  he  should  see ;  the  almond  was  a  tree 
of  rapid  growth  and  early  bloom ;  it  typi- 
fied speedy  action.  As  the  young  Jew  had 
shown  his  capacity  for  right  discernment, 
the  Lord  commended  his  wise  answer,  and 
said  to  him,  "  Thou  hast  well  seen." 

There  is  a  right  way  and  a  wrong  way 
of  looking   at   almost   everything.     To   a 


RIGHT  SEEING.  1 1 1 

man  who  has  no  eye  for  beauty  one  of 
Claude's  landscapes  is  merely  so  much 
paint  and  linen  canvas ;  to  another  it  is  a 
masterpiece  of  golden  sunlight  bathing 
field  and  forest  with  its  glory.  To  many 
it  was  predicted  that  Christ,  the  Messiah, 
would  be  as  "  a  root  out  of  dry  ground, 
having  no  form  or  comeliness.  When  they 
shall  see  Him,  there  is  no  beauty  that  they 
should  desire  Him;  He  will  be  despised 
and  rejected  of  men."  When  He  came, 
therefore,  to  His  own,  they  received  Him 
not.  As  many  as  beheld  Him  rightly  and 
received  Him,  to  them  gave  He  the  privi- 
lege of  becoming  the  children  of  God.  He 
is  to  them  the  chief  among  ten  thousand, 
and  the  altogether  lovely.  Christ  never 
changes.  The  difference  between  the 
thoughtless  sinner  and  the  same  person 
after  he  is  converted,  is,  that  he  looks  at 
Him  with  a  new  eye,  and  sees  Him  to  be 
the  very  Saviour  that  he  needs. 

Some  people  look  at  God  only  as  a  con- 


112  RIGHT  SEEING. 

suming  fire,  and  are  struck  with  despair. 
Others  go  to  the  opposite  extreme,  and 
see  in  Him  nothing  but  pity  and  pardon- 
ing mercy;  they  easily  sHde  off  into  Uni- 
versahsm.  But  the  man  who  magnifies 
God's  mercy  at  the  expense  of  His  justice, 
and  who  does  not  beheve  that  He  will  pun- 
ish sin  as  it  deserves,  has  not  "  well  seen." 
He  will  be  cured  of  his  delusion  on  the 
Day  of  Judgment.  Those  wise  men  at 
Westminster  saw  the  Divine  Being,  our 
Heavenly  Father,  in  the  right  proportions 
of  His  attributes  when  they  framed  that 
wonderful  answer  to  that  question  in  the 
Catechism,  "What  is  God?" 

In  nothing  are  we  all  apt.  to  make  more 
terrible  blunders  than  in  looking  at  God's 
providential  dealings.  Even  some  Chris- 
tians have  a  heathenish  habit  of  talking 
about  "good  luck"  and  "windfalls"  and 
"  bad  fortune,"  and  other  expressions  that 
convey  the  idea  that  this  life  is  a  mere 
game  of  chance.     Blind  unbehef  may  be 


RIGHT  SEEING.  1 1 3 

expected  to  err,  and  to  scan  God's  work 
as  either  a  riddle  or  a  muddle.  A  Chris- 
tian, who  has  had  his  eyes  opened,  ought  to 
know  better.  Yet  how  often  do  we  all  re- 
gard God's  dealings  in  a  wrong  light,  and 
call  them  by  the  wrong  name !  We  fre- 
quently speak  of  certain  things  as  afflic- 
tions when  they  are  really  blessings  in 
disguise.  We  congratulate  people  on  gain- 
ing what  turns  out  to  be  a  terrible  snare, 
or  a  worse  than  loss.  Quite  as  often  we 
condole  with  them  over  a  lot  which  is 
about  to  yield  to  them  mercies  more  pre- 
cious than  gold.  Old  Jacob  probably 
thought  that  he  was  a  fair  subject  for  com- 
miseration on  that  evening  when  he  sat 
moaning  in  his  tent-door ;  but  the  caravan 
was  just  approaching  which  brought  him 
Simeon  and  Benjamin,  and  glorious  tid- 
ings about  the  long-lost  Joseph.  He  had 
not  well  seen  what  sort  of  a  God  he  was 
serving. 

Let  us  hesitate  before  we  condole  with  a 
8 


114  RIGHT  SEEING. 

brother  who  is  under  the  chastisement  of  our 
loving  Father  in  Heaven.  Be  careful  how 
you  condole  with  a  man  who  has  lost  his 
money  and  saved  his  good  name,  or  con- 
gratulate the  man  who  has  made  a  milHon 
at  the  expense  of  his  piety.  When  a  Chris- 
tian is  toppled  over  from  a  dizzy  and  dan- 
gerous height,  and  "brought  down  to  hard 
pan,"  he  is  brought  down  to  the  solid  rock 
at  the  same  time.  In  the  valley  of  humiu- 
ation  he  has  more  of  the  joy  of  God's 
countenance,  and  wears  more  of  the  herb 
called  ''  heart's-ease  "  in  his  bosom,  than  he 
ever  did  in  the  days  of  his  giddy  prosper- 
ity. Sickness  has  often  brought  to  a  man 
spiritual  recovery ;  suffering  has  often 
wrought  out  for  him  an  exceeding  weight 
of  glory.  The  writer  of  this  paragraph 
has  lately  been  led  through  a  very  shad- 
owy pathway  of  trial ;  but  it  has  never 
been  so  dark  that  he  could  not  see  to  read 
some  precious  promises  that  glowed  like 
diamonds.     The    adversary   tries    hard   to 


RIGHT .  SEEING.  1 1 5 

break  our  lamp,  and  to  steal  our  diamonds 
in  those  dark  passage-ways  of  trial.  We 
need  good  eyesight  in  such  times  of  trouble, 
so  as  not  to  stumble,  or  to  lose  sight  of  the 
Comforter,  or  of  the  bright  light  which 
shines  at  the  end  of  the  way. 

I  have  seen  people  condole  tenderly 
with  a  weeping  mother  whose  child  has 
flown  away  home  to  heaven ;  but  they 
never  thought  of  condoling  with  her  over 
a  living  child  who  was  a  frivolous  slave 
of  fashion,  or  a  dissipated  sensualist,  or  a 
wayward  son,  the  "  heaviness  of  his  mother." 
A  hundred  times  over  have  I  pitied  more 
the  parent  of  a  living  sorrow  than  the  par- 
ent of  a  departed  joy.  Spare  your  tears 
from  the  darlings  who  are  safe  in  the  arms 
of  Jesus,  and  spend  them  over  the  living 
who  are  yet  dead  in  sin  and  sheer  impeni- 
tence. Let  us  learn  to  see  things  rightly, 
and  call  them  by  their  right  names.  We 
too  often  drape  our  real  blessings  with  a 
pall,  and  decorate  our  dangerous  tempta- 


Il6  •      RIGHT  SEEING, 

tions  with  garlands.  The  sharpest  trials 
this  nation  ever  knew  have  turned  into 
tender  mercies.  Garfield  in  his  grave  has 
done  more  for  us  than  Garfield  could  have 
done  in  the  presidential  chair.  Satan  out- 
witted himself  when  he  armed  one  of  his 
imps  to  be  an  assassin. 

Let  us  all  pray  fervently  for  spiritual 
discernment.  Lord,  open  Thou  our  eyes  ! 
Then  we  shall  see  this  world  to  be  a  mere 
training-school  for  a  better  world ;  we  shall 
see  a  Father's  smile  behind  the  darkest 
cloud  ;  we  shall  see  in  duty  done  our  highest 
delight ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  conflict  we 
shall  see  the  King  in  His  beauty ^  and  know 
Him  even  as  we  are  known. 


THE   LORD   OUR  STRENGTH. 


'THHE  first  lesson  of  childhood  is  human 
-^  weakness.  The  earliest  cry  of  the  in- 
fant betrays  it.  At  the  other  end  of  life  we 
often  see  a  pitiable  dotage,  such  as  I  en- 
countered lately  in  the  case  of  a  man  who 
was  once  a  luminary  of  the  American  pul- 
pit, but  now  cannot  remember  the  names 
of  his  own  children.  But  the  weakest  side 
of  humanity  is  its  moral  side.  Colossal 
intellect  is  often  found  lodged  in  the  same 
person  with  a  conscience  of  mere  pulp. 
For  the  sake  of  morality,  I  rejoice  that 
Madame  de  Remusat  and  Metternich  have 
lately  been  stripping  away  the  glamour  that 
has  hung  around  that  stupendous  embodi- 
ment  of    selfishness,    Napoleon    I.     They 


Il8         THE  LORD  OUR  STRENGTH, 

show  US  the  intellectual  giant  continually 
pushed  over  with  a  straw.  The  chief  les- 
son of  such  a  career  as  Napoleon's  is  to 
demonstrate  what  a  contemptible  creature 
man  is  the  moment  he  cuts  loose  from 
God. 

One  of  the  chief  purposes  of  our  divine 
religion  is  to  teach  man  where  to  find  this 
indispensable  element  of  strength.  The 
Divine  Word,  coming  from  the  very  Maker 
of  man,  who  knows  us  completely,  de- 
clares that  "  he  who  trusteth  in  his  own 
heart  is  a  fool."  We  have  no  spiritual 
strength  in  ourselves.  Just  as  our  bodies 
derive  all  their  strength  from  the  food  we 
eat,  and  every  oak  draws  its  strength  from 
the  surrounding  earth  and  air,  so  our  souls 
obtain  all  spiritual  power  from  a  source 
outside  of  us.  Psalmist  David,  whose  na- 
tive weaknesses  were  deplorably  conspicu- 
ous, was  only  strong  when  in  alliance  with 
God.  His  declaration  is,  *'The  Lord  is  my 
strength."     This  is  the  only  strength  which 


THE  LORD  OUR  STRENGTH,  1 19 

the  Bible  recognizes.  Who  are  the  Bible 
heroes?  Men  of  genius,  wits,  orators, 
philosophers?  No.  They  are  the  Enoch 
who  walked  with  God,  the  Joseph  who 
conquered  sensual  temptation  because  God 
was  with  him,  the  Elijah  who  stood  like  a 
granite  pillar  against  the  tides  of  idolatry, 
and  the  Daniel  who  never  quailed  at  the 
lion's  roar.  Daniel  gives  us  the  secret  of 
his  strength  in  his  three-times-a-day  inter- 
views with  God.  The  Lord  fed  his  inner 
soul  as  the  subterranean  springs  feed  a  well 
and  keep  it  full  during  summer  droughts. 

God's  strength  is  "  made  perfect  in  our 
weakness."  This  means  that  the  divine 
power  is  most  conspicuous  when  our  weak- 
ness is  the  most  thoroughly  felt.  We  have 
got  first  to  be  emptied  of  all  self-conceit 
and  self-confidence.  A  bucket  cannot  hold 
air  and  water  at  the  same  time.  As  the 
water  comes  in  the  air  must  go  out.  The 
meaning  of  some  hard  trials  is  to  get  the 
accursed  spirit  of  self  out  of  our  hearts. 


I20  THE  LORD   OUR  STRENGTH. 

When  we  have  been  emptied  of  self-trust, 
we  are  in  the  condition  to  be  filled  with 
might  in  the  inner  man  by  the  power  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  When  Isaiah  felt  that 
he  was  but  a  child,  and  an  unclean  one  at 
that,  he  received  the  touch  of  celestial 
fire.  Peter  had  immense  confidence  in 
Peter  when  he  boasted  of  his  own  strength ; 
but  after  pride  had  got  its  fall,  Peter  is 
endued  with  power  from  on  high,  and 
then  the  apostle  who  was  frightened  by  a 
servant-girl  could  face  a  Sanhedrim.  A 
Christian  must  not  only  realize  his  own 
utter  feebleness,  but  he  must  give  up 
what  worldlings  rely  on,  and  admit  that 
**  vain  is  the  help  of  man." 

That  poor  woman  who  had  tried  all  the 
doctors  in  her  neighborhood,  and  had 
only  grown  worse  in  body  and  poorer  in 
purse,  is  a  touching  illustration  of  our  in- 
valid souls.  She  despaired  of  human  help, 
and  came  crouching  to  the  feet  of  the 
Son  of  God.     One  touch  of  His  garments 


THE  LORD   OUR  STRENGTH.  121 

sent   a   new   tide   of  health    througn    her 
veins.     Contact    with    Christ    brings    cur- 
rents of  the  divine  power  into  our  souls,  so 
that  we  can  do  all  things  through   Christ 
which  strengtheneth  us.     At  the  very  out- 
set of  the  spiritual   life  this  divine  strength 
becomes  recognized.     A  Gough  or  a  Saw- 
yer testifies  that  he  gained  his  victory  over 
the  bottle  by  the  influx  of  a  new  principle 
and    a   new   power   into    his    heart.     The 
essence  of  conversion  with  them  was  that 
the  seven  devils  of  lust  for  the  cup  were 
cast   out,  and  Christ  came    in.     This  was 
a  supernatural   work,   the  very  thing  that 
modern  scepticism  hoots  at;   but  a  Bible 
which    did  not   bring  a  supernatural    ele- 
ment   into    weak    and    wicked    humanity 
would  not  be  worth  the  paper  on  which  it 
is  printed.     If  the    Christ  of  Christianity 
cannot  and  does  not  endow  a  frail  sinner 
with  supernatural   power  to  resist  terrible 
temptations,  then  is  Christianity  a  confessed 
imposture  and  delusion.     But  it  does  stand 


122  THE  LORD  OUR  STRENGTH. 

this  very  crucial  test.  Multitudes  have 
given  the  triumphant  testimony  that,  under 
sore  pressure,  the  Lord  stood  with  them  and 
strengthened  them.  Their  testimony  has 
always  been,  "  When  I  am  weak,  then  am  I 
strong,"  —  that  is,  when  I  get  emptied  of 
self-trust  Jesus  comes  in  and  strengthens 
me.  Charles  G.  Finney  has  left  us  some 
wonderful  experiences  of  the  prodigious 
tides  of  power  which  poured  into  his  soul 
and  into  his  work  when  he  humbled  him- 
self before  God  and  put  his  own  soul,  like 
an  empty  vessel,  under  the  divine  power, 
until  he  became  filled  "  unto  all  the  fulness 
of  God." 

This  is  the  real  office  of  faith.  It  is  sim- 
ply the  linking  of  our  utter  weakness  to  the 
omnipotence  of  Christ.  We  furnish  weak- 
ness and  He  furnishes  strength,  and  that 
makes  the  partnership.  The  baby  furnishes 
a  hungry  little  mouth,  and  the  mother  fur- 
nishes the  nourishing  milk.  The  mother 
is  happy  that  she  can  give  the  full  supply, 


THE  LORD  OUR  STRENGTH.  1 23 

and  the  rosy  darling  is  happy  as  it  draws 
in  the  sweet  contentment.  Beautiful  pic- 
ture of  my  poor  weak,  hungry  soul  resting 
on  the  bosom  of  the  Infinite  Love  !  There 
is  no  danger  that  the  supply  will  ever  give 
out,  for  my  Lord,  my  Feeder,  my  Supporter, 
is  constantly  saying  unto  me,  *'  My  grace 
is  sufficient  for  thee."  In  this  way  we  are 
strengthened  with  all  might  according  to 
His  glorious  power.  A  happier  translation 
of  the  sentence  in  i  Colossians  would  be, 
''  2;/forced  with  all  force."  We  have  re- 
tained the  word  **  reinforce  "  in  the  English 
language,  and  it  is  a  pity  that  we  have 
dropped  the  older  word  **  inforce,"  for  it 
describes  exactly  the  impartation  of  the 
divine  strength  to  a  believer's  soul. 

Alas,  how  easily  we  run  dry,  and  how 
constantly  we  need  replenishment !  Yes- 
terday's breakfast  will  not  feed  me  to- 
morrow. The  Christian  who  tries  to  live 
on  the  experiences  of  last  year  were  as 
insane   as  if  he  attempted   to   work   on  the 


124  1'HE  LORD  OUR  STRENGTH, 

food  eaten  a  month  ago.  Lord,  evermore 
give  us  this  bread !  They  that  wait  on 
the  Lord  shall  renew  their  strength,  the 
waste  shall  constantly  be  repaired,  and  the 
new  emergency  shall  be  met  with  a  fresh 
supply. 

One  great  purpose  in  all  afflictions  is 
to  bring  us  down  to  the  everlasting  arms. 
We  had  become  presumptuous,  and  had 
made  flesh  our  arm.  We  were  trying  to  go 
alone,  and  then  came  a  fall.  Trouble,  and 
even  bereavement,  may  be  a  great  blessing, 
if  it  sends  us  home  to  Jesus.  A  boy  often 
forgets  that  he  has  a  home  until  a  cut  or  a 
bruise  sends  him  crying  to  his  mother's  side 
for  the  bandage  or  the  medicine.  God 
often  strikes  away  our  props  to  bring  us 
down  upon  His  mighty  arms.  What 
strength  and  peace  it  gives  us  to  feel  them 
underneath  us  !  Far  as  we  may  sink,  we 
cannot  go  farther  down  than  those  out- 
stretched arms.  There  we  stop,  there  we 
rest ; ,  and  the  everlasting  arms  not  only 


THE  LORD   OUR  STRENGTH.  125 

sustain  us,  but  carry  us  along,  as  on  eagles* 
wings.  Faith  is  just  the  clinging  of  my 
weak  soul  to  the  Omnipotent  Jesus;  its 
constant  cry  is ;  — 

"  I  am  weak,  but  Thou  art  mighty  : 
Hold  me  with  Thy  powerful  hand." 

To  that  hand  let  me  cling  with  all  the  five 
fingers  of  my  faith.  It  will  never  let  me 
drop  until  it  lands  me  in  glory. 


A  CONSTANT   SALVATION. 


A  CLIPPER  ship  crossing  the  Banks 
of  Newfoundland  in  heavy  weather 
strikes  an  iceberg.  She  settles  rapidly  at 
the  bow,  and  her  captain  and  crew  have 
barely  time  to  leap  into  the  life-boat.  The 
question,  "  What  must  we  do  to  be  saved?  " 
is  answered  by  their  prompt  leap  into  the 
life-boat,  which  is  an  act  of  faith.  They 
trust  their  lives  to  it  for  salvation.  From 
immediate  death  they  are  saved. 

But,  after  the  ship  has  sunk,  the  crew 
are  still  out  in  the  deep  and  dangerous  sea. 
There  is  a  second  process  necessary.  In 
order  to  keep  out  of  the  trough  of  the  sea 
and  to  reach  the  distant  shore,  they  must 
stick   to  the  boat  and    pull   lustily  at  the 


A  CONSTANT  SALVATION  12/ 

oars.  They  must  "  work  out  their  salva- 
tion "  now  by  hard  rowing.  But  this  is  a 
continued  process  of  salvation  day  after 
day  until  they  reach  the  shores  of  Nova 
Scotia.  Never  for  a  moment,  however, 
are  they  independent  of  the  life-boat.  That 
must  keep  them  afloat,  or  they  go  to  the 
bottom.  At  last,  after  hard  rowing,  they 
reach  the  welcome  shore.  This  is  their 
third,  final,  and  complete  salvation,  for 
they  are  entirely  beyond  any  perils  of  the 
treacherous  sea.  Now  they  are  at  rest,  for 
they  have  reached  the  desired  haven. 

This  homely  parable  will  illustrate  with 
sufficient  clearness  the  three  ways  in  which 
the  word  salvation  is  employed  in  God's 
Word  and  in  human  experience.  The  first 
leap  into  the  life-boat  illustrates  that  deci- 
sive act  of  the  soul  in  quitting  all  other 
worthless  reliances  and  throwing  itself  on 
Christ  Jesus  in  simple,  believing  trust. 
This  is  conversion.  By  it  the  soul  is  deliv- 
ered from  the  guilt  and  condemnation  of 
sin. 


128  A  CONSTANT  SALVATION. 

•  The  Holy  Spirit  is  active  in  this  step, 
cleansing  and  renewing  the  heart.  By  this 
act  of  surrender  to  Christ  the  sinner  es- 
capes from  death  into  life.  He  may  joy- 
fully cry  out,  "  By  the  grace  of  God  I  am 
saved  !  " 

Yet  this  converted  believer  is  no  more 
independent  of  Christ  as  a  Saviour  than 
those  sailors  were  of  that  life-boat;  for 
until  he  reaches  the  consummated  deliver- 
ance of  heaven  (which  is  what  the  word 
**  salvation"  signifies  in  Psalm  xci.  i6) 
he  must  be  clinging  to  Christ  Jesus  ev- 
ery day.  And  it  is  this  daily  and  hourly 
salvation  that  we  wish  to  emphasize  at 
present.  Too  many  people  limit  the  word 
to  the  initial  step  of  converting  faith,  and 
falsely  conclude  that  nothing  more  is  to  be 
done.  A  certain  school  of  rather  mystical 
wfehristians  so  magnify  this  act  of  receiv- 
ing the  "  gift  of  etei '^  life  "  in  Christ  that 
they  quite  forget  the  fact  that  a  vast  deal  of 
head  winds,  hard  rowing,  conflict  with  the 


A  CONSTANT  SALVATION.  1 29 

devil  and  remaining  lusts  must  be  encoun- 
tered. 

There  is  a  very  important  sense  in  which 
every  true  servant  of  Christ  is  obliged  to 
"  work  out  his  salvation  "  every  day  of  his 
life,  if  he  lives  a  century.  It  was  not  to 
impenitent  sinners  or  to  anxious  inquirers 
that  Paul  addressed  the  famous  injunction, 
"  Work  out  your  own  salvation  with  fear  and 
trembling ;  "  he  was  addressing  the  blood- 
bought  church  at  Philippi.  And  if  he 
were  alive  to-day  he  might  well  ring  these 
solemn  words  into  the  ears  of  every  Chris- 
tian in  the  land.  For  if  our  original  deliv- 
erance from  the  condemnation  of  sin  and 
from  the  desert  of  hell  depended  on  our 
surrender  to  Christ,  so  our  constant  salva- 
tion from  the  assaults  of  sin  depends  upon 
our  constant  clinging  to  the  Saviour  and  our 
constant  obedience  to  His  commandments. 
Faith  without  works  is  dead.  Brethren,  we 
may  be  in  the  life-boat,  but  the  life-boat  is 
not  heaven.  There  is  many  a  hard  tug  at  the 

9 


130  A  CONSTANT  SALVATION. 

oar,  many  a  night  of  tempest,  many  a  dan- 
ger from  false  lights,  and  many  a  scud  under 
bare  poles  (with  pride's  **  top-hammer  "  all 
gone),  before  we  reach  the  shining  shore. 
To  the  last  moment  on  earth  our  salva- 
tion depends  on  complete  submission  to 
Jesus.  Without  Him,  nothing;  with  Him, 
all  things. 

Please  bear  in  mind  that  salvation  sig- 
nifies simply  the  process  of  saving.  Our 
Blessed  Master  means  to  save  us  and  our 
lives  for  Himself,  if  we  will  let  Him  do  it  and 
will  honestly  co-operate  with  Him.  Yonder 
is  an  acre  of  weeds  which  its  owner  wishes 
to  save  from  barrenness  to  fruitfulness ;  so 
he  subjugates  it  with  plough  and  harrow 
and  all  the  processes  of  cultivation.  If  the 
soil  should  cry  out  against  the  ploughshare 
and  the  harrow  and  the  hoe,  the  farmer's 
answer  would  be,  *^  Only  by  submission 
to  this  discipline  can  I  rear  the  golden 
crop  which  shall  be  to  your  credit  and  to 
my  glory."    In    like  manner,  by  absolute 


A  CONSTANT  SALVATION.  131 

submission  to  Christ's  will,  by  constant 
obedience  to  His  pure  commandments,  by 
the  readiness  to  be  used  by  Him  entirely  for 
His  own  purposes  can  you  or  I  be  saved  to 
life's  highest  end.  The  instant  that  I  real- 
ize entirely  that  I  am  Christ's,  I  must  also 
realize  that  my  time  must  be  saved  from 
waste  for  Him  and  my  influence  must  be 
consecrated  to  Him.  All  accumulation  is 
by  wise  saving.  Sin  means  waste,  and  ends 
in  ruin  and  remorse.  The  honest,  devoted 
Christian  is  Uterally  "  working  out  his  sal- 
vation "  when  he  is  daily  striving  to  redeem 
his  time,  and  employ  his  utmost  capacity, 
and  use  his  every  opportunity  to  make  his 
life  a  beautiful  offering  and  possession  for 
his  Lord.  If  we  were  not  worth  saving, 
our  Lord  would  never  have  tasted  the  bit- 
ter agonies  of  Golgotha  to  redeem  us.  If 
every  saved  follower  is  by  and  by  to  be 
presented  by  Christ  '*  faultless,  with  exceed- 
ing joy,"  then  is  a  Christian  life  a  jewel 
worthy  of  His  diadem.     O    my  soul,  let 


132  A  CONSTANT  SALVATION. 

Him  work  in  me  to  will  and  to  do  accord- 
ing to  His  good  pleasure,  if  I  can  be  made 
to  yield  this  revenue  of  honor  to  my  be- 
loved Lord ! 

There  is  another  sense  in  which  Christ 
furnishes  us  a  constant  salvation.  His 
presence  saves  me  in  the  hour  of  strong 
temptation.  He  keeps  me  from  falling  in 
a  thousand  cases  where  T  do  not  directly 
recognize  His  hand.  When  I  wake  up  in 
the  morning,  after  a  night  ride  in  a  Pull- 
man car,  I  do  not  know  how  many  human 
hands  have  been  busy  in  order  that  I  might 
ride  safely  through  the  pitch  darkness ; 
and  when  I  get  to  heaven,  perhaps  I  may 
find  out  how  often  Jesus  interposed  to  save 
me  from  threatened  ruin  and  from  unsus- 
pected dangers.  He  was  saving  me  in  a 
hundred  ways  that  I  did  not  dream  of,  and 
the  visible  acknowledged  deliverances  were 
all  due  to  Him.  Daily  grace  means  a  daily 
salvation.  Paul  lived  thus  in  constant  de- 
pendence, realizing  that  if  Christ  withdrew 


A   CONSTANT  SALVATION.  1 33 

His  arm  he  must  sink  in  an  instant.  Not 
for  one  moment  can  I  dispense  with  the 
life-boat  until  my  foot  stands  where  "  there 
is  no  more  sea." 

If  these  things  be  true,  then  we  ought  ever 
to  be  praying:  "O  Lord,  what  must  I 
do  now  to  be  saved?  To  be  saved  from 
waste  of  time ;  to  be  saved  from  dishonor- 
ing Thee ;  to  be  saved  from  secret  sin ;  and 
to  be  saved  up  to  the  fullest,  richest,  holi- 
est service  of  Thyself?  "  He  can  help  us 
to  accomplish  all  this,  for  His  grace  can 
bring  us  a  full  salvation.  When  we  reach 
heaven,  we  shall  no  longer  need  to  be 
saved.  The  voyage  will  be  over,  the  dan- 
gers ended ;  the  multitudes  who  have  been 
saved  will  then  walk  in  the  light  of  the 
New  Jerusalem,  and  cast  their  crowns  at 
the  feet  of  Him  who  purchased  for  us 
so  ineffably  glorious  and  transcendent  a 
SALVATION. 


HEALTHY   AND   HAPPY. 


THE  Christmas  bells  are  ringing  in  the 
brightest  day  in  the  Christian  calendar. 
The  clock  of  time  will  soon  strike  for  the 
birth  of  another  twelvemonth,  when  every 
man  will  wish  his  neighbor  a  "  Happy  New 
Year !  "  To  many  it  will  no  doubt  be  a 
day  of  sadness,  for  it  will  remind  them  of 
the  loved  ones  whom  the  past  year  has 
buried  out  of  their  sight;  but  every  gen- 
uine disciple  of  Jesus,  every  heir  of  heaven, 
ought  to  possess  deep  and  abiding  resour- 
ces of  joy,  that  lie  as  far  beneath  the  tem- 
pests of  trial  as  the  depths  of  the  Atlantic 
are  beneath  the  storms  that  have  lately  torn 
its  surface  into  foaming  billows.  Every 
healthy  Christian    ought   to   be   a   happy 


HEALTHY  AND  HAPPY.  1 35 

Christian   under    every  stress    of   circum- 
stances. 

A  living  Christian  who  is  worthy  of  the 
name  must  possess  more  or  less  of  the  Jioli- 
ness  without  which   no   man  can    see   the 
Lord.      There    is  a  misconception    and   a 
prejudice  in  the  minds  of  some  good  people 
in  regard  to  this  word,  on  account  of  the 
abuse    of  it   by  certain  visionaries  of  the 
''perfectionist"  school.     But  holiness  sig- 
nifies health  of  heart  and  life.     It  is  equiva- 
lent  to    the    Saxon   word    wholtJi,  and   to 
be  holy  is   really  to   be  whole  or  healed. 
Sin   is   soul-sickness ;   regeneration  by  the 
Divine  Spirit  is  recovery  from  that  sickness. 
There  is  no  condemnation  of  guilt  to  them 
who  are  in  Christ  Jesus ;   He  is  the  physi- 
cian who  delivers  them  from  deadly  disease. 
If  good    health    means    misery,  then  is  a 
sincere   Christian    a  miserable  mope ;   but 
if  health   means    a   happy  condition,  then 
should  Christ's  redeemed  ones  be  the  most 
cheerful,  sunny-hearted  people  in  the  com- 
munity. 


136  HEALTHY  AND  HAPPY. 

There  are  several  characteristics  of  a  true 
child  of  God.  One  of  them  is  that  he  is 
forgiven.  To  be  pardoned  has  made  many 
a  prison-door  like  a  gate  of  paradise.  The 
sweet  sense  of  sin  forgiven  has  been  an 
ecstasy  to  thousands  who  had  '*  groaned, 
being  burdened,"  but  had  found  relief  at 
the  cross  of  Christ.  Another  evidence  of 
spiritual  health  is  a  good  conscience,  —  a 
conscience  enlightened  by  the  Bible,  a 
conscience  kept  sweet  and  wholesome  by 
prayer,  a  conscience  that  comforts  its 
possessor,  instead  of  tormenting  him  by  a 
certain  fearful  looking-for  of  judgment. 
What  a  diseased  liver  is  in  the  bodily 
organization,  is  a  bad  conscience  in  the 
spiritual  man,  it  breeds  continual  mischief 
and  misery.  "  How  is  your  liver  ?  "  was 
the  first  question  of  a  shrewd  and  humor- 
ous old  minister  to  me  on  my  entrance 
into  the  ministry.  When  I  told  him  that 
it  was  sound,  he  replied,  *'  Then  yoti  7/  do." 
That  Christian  never  suffers  from  spiritual 


HEALTHY  AND  HAPPY.  1 37 

dyspepsia  who  keeps  a  conscience  void  of 
offence  towards  God  and  man. 

A  healthy  soul  has  a  strong  appetite  for 
Divine  truth.  He  enjoys  the  daily  manna 
of  the  Word,  and  has  no  lustings  for  the 
"  flesh-pots  "  of  the  world.  It  is  not  the 
stimulant  of  spiced  pastry  that  he  is  after, 
but  the  strong  meat  of  the  gospel  as  well 
as  the  honeycomb.  His  soul  '*  delights  it- 
self in  the  fatness  "  of  God's  Word.  To 
some  people  Mr.  Moody's  style  of  talking 
about  the  banquet  which  the  Bible  affords 
him  seems  like  extravagance;  the  reason 
is,  that  their  spiritual  taste  is  utterly  cor- 
rupted by  feeding  on  such  confectionery  as 
novels  and  secular  newspapers.  A  combi- 
nation of  Bible-diet  and  Bible-duties  would 
soon  make  them  as  vigorous  as  Mr.  Moody. 
If  he  did  not  show  in  his  own  conduct  and 
condition  the  ''feeding"  he  lives  on,  he 
would  not  make  many  converts. 

HoHness  is  constant  agreement  with  God. 
It  is  the  agreement  of  love  —  deeper  even 


138  HEALTHY  AND  HAPPY. 

and  sweeter  than  the  most  unbroken 
wedlock.  From  this  harmony  of  soul  with 
the  Divine  Will  flows  a  great  deep,  broad 
river  of  peace,  which  passeth  all  under- 
standing and  fathoming.  This  stream  grows 
deeper  and  wider,  until,  like  an  Amazon,  it 
empties  into  the  ocean  of  eternal  love.  The 
holy  believer  —  who  accepts  God's  prom- 
ises more  readily  than  the  best  government 
bonds,  who  shapes  his  life  in  conformity 
with  Christ,  who  keeps  his  soul's  windows 
open  towards  the  sun-rising,  who  makes 
even  a  cross  the  ladder  for  a  climb  into  a 
higher  fellowship  with  Jesus,  who  realizes 
that  just  before  him  lies  the  exceeding  and 
eternal  weight  of  glory,  —  cannot  be  made 
a  sour  or  peevish  or  melancholy  man  by 
any  outward  circumstances.  The  holy- 
minded  Rutherford  of  Scotland  wrote  most 
of  his  immortal  "  Letters  "  within  the  cell 
of  a  martyr's  prison.  They  read  like  leaves 
from  the  tree  of  life,  floated  down  on  sun- 
beams.    *'  Come,  O  my  well-beloved  !  "  he 


HEALTHY  AND  HAPPY.  1 39 

exclaims ;  "  move  fast,  that  we  may  meet 
at  the  banquet.  I  would  not  exchange  one 
smile  of  Christ's  lovely  face  for  kingdoms. 
There  is  no  house-room  for  crosses  in 
heaven.  Sorrow  and  the  saints  are  not 
married  together ;  or,  if  it  were  so,  heaven 
would  divorce  them."  The  holiness  of  such 
a  man  is  not  the  enthusiasm  of  a  visionary 
or  the  mere  outburst  of  transient  emotion ; 
it  is  the  normal  condition  of  the  man,  the 
wholeness  of  a  soul  that  has  been  trans- 
formed by  grace  into  the  likeness  and  the 
life  of  Jesus  Christ.  Keeping  Christ's  com- 
mandments keeps  the  eye  clear  and  the 
temper  sweet  and  the  will  submissive  and 
the  affections  pure :  in  these  lies  the  rich 
reward. 

The  highest  type  of  piety  is  cheerful. 
The  more  we  stud}-  the  lives  and  examples 
of  the  healthiest  Christians,  the  more  we 
find  them  to  be  the  men  and  women  who 
walk  in  the  sunshine.  The  Luthers,  the 
Wilberforces,  the  Summerfields,  the  Guth- 


140  HEALTHY  AND  HAPPY, 

ries,  the  Spurgeons,  and  the  Norman  Mc- 
Leods  were  and  are  the  Hving  illustrations 
of  the  truth  that  close  contact  with  God  is 
the  supremest  source  of  happiness.  There 
is  such  a  thing  as  "  the  joy  in  the  Holy 
Spirit."  There  is  a  meat  for  the  soul  to  feed 
on  that  this  lying,  deceitful,  and  deceived 
world  knoweth  not  of.  The  measure  of 
our  holiness  is  the  true  measure  of  our 
happiness ;  it  will  be  the  measure  of  our 
final  enjoyment  of  heaven. 

Brooklyn,  December,  1881. 


THE  ANGELS   OF  THE   SEPULCHRE. 


IN  the  most  beautiful  cemetery  at  the 
capital  of  this  Commomvealth  stands  a 
marble  statue  carved  by  the  cunning  of 
Palmer's  chisel.  It  represents  '*  The  Angel 
of  the  Sepulchre."  On  every  side  the  dead 
are  sleeping;  but  beside  them  sits  this 
silent  sentinel,  as  if  to  guard  the  slumbering 
dust  until  the  resurrection-trump  sounds 
the  reveille  on  the  Judgment  morn.  That 
angel  which  Palmer's  chisel  fashioned  is 
of  solid  stone  ;  but  the  "  angels  in  white  " 
whom  Mary  of  Magdala  saw  in  the  deserted 
tomb  of  Jesus  were  pure  incorporeal  spirits. 
They  assumed  a  visible  form ;  but  angels 
are  never  described  as  material  beings  of 
flesh  and  blood  like  ourselves.     Excelling 


142     THE  ANGELS  OF   THE  SEPULCHRE. 

in  strength,  they  go  forth  as  God's  mes- 
sengers to  do  His  will,  to  watch  over 
children,  to  bear  home  the  departed  spirits 
of  God's  people,  and  to  encamp  round 
about  His  covenant  ones  who  fear  Him. 

From  those  angelic  appearances  at  the 
tomb  of  our  Redeemer  on  His  resurrection 
morn  we  may  gather  some  cheering  les- 
sons. When  the  anxious  Marys  were  on 
their  way  to  that  tomb  with  their  spices, 
the  thought  flashed  into  their  minds,  "  Who 
will  roll  away  for  us  that  rock  at  the  sepul- 
chre?" But  the  difficulty  is  solved  in  a 
way  that  they  had  not  dreamed  of.  An 
angel  from  heaven  has  already  been  there, 
and  has  opened  the  gate  of  rock  to  let  the 
King  of  Glory  out.  So  God  often  sends  an 
angel  of  Help  to  roll  away  our  hinderances. 
Some  of  them  are  real  obstacles,  some  of 
them  are  created  by  our  fears.  The  awak- 
ened sinner  often  encounters  difficulties  in 
a  stubborn  will,  or  in  long-formed  habits, 
or  in  obstinate  appetites.     As  soon  as  he 


THE  ANGELS  OF    THE  SEPULCHRE.    1 43 

submits  to  Christ,  he  finds  these  difficul- 
ties give  way:  divine  power  achieves  for 
him  what  his  own  unaided  weakness  could 
not  accomplish. 

Many  a  child  of  God  has  been  brought 
under  a  sore  bereavement,  and  the  first 
thought  has  been,  Oh,  how  can  I  bear  this 
burden  of  grief  ?  How  can  I  surmount  all 
these  new  hardships  and  difficulties?  A 
widow  left  with  a  brood  of  orphans,  and 
with  scanty  provision  to  feed  and  clothe 
them,  is  tempted  to  give  up  in  despair. 
But  when  she  reaches  one  difficulty  after 
another,  lo !  the  stone  is  rolled  away.  A 
friend  provides  for  this  lad ;  a  home  is  of- 
fered to  another;  a  third  begins  to  help 
himself  and  mother  too ;  and  she  soon 
finds  that  she  can  do  a  hundred  things 
which  she  thought  impossible.  Beside  the 
widow  in  her  weeds  walked  an  angel  in 
white,  which  strengthened  her. 

God  always  has  an  angel  of  help  for 
those   who  are  willing  to  do  their   duty. 


144'  ^-^^  ANGELS  OP   THE  SEPULCHRE.     ' 

How  often  have  we  been  afraid  to  under- 
take some  difficult  work  for  Him,  but  as 
soon  as  we  laid  hold  of  it  the  rock  of  hin- 
derance  was  removed.  The  tempter  told 
us  that  if  we  attempted  to  save  some  har- 
dened soul  we  should  encounter  an  im- 
movable adamant.  We  had  faith  enough 
to  try,  and  prayer  brought  the  power 
which  turned  the  heart  of  stone  to  flesh. 
Evermore  the  adversary  is  busy  in  frighten- 
ing us  from  labors  of  love  for  our  Master. 
Yet  if  our  single  aim  is  to  reach  Jesus  and 
to  honor  Jesus,  no  hinderance  is  immovable. 
The  world  thought  Paul  a  madman  and 
Luther  a  fanatic,  and  Wilberforce  and  Duff 
but  pious  visionaries.  When  the  Omnipo- 
tent IIelJ>  came  down,  opposing  rocks  were 
swept  away,  and  the  Devil's  guards  were 
put  to  flight.  The  very  lions  which 
frighten  —  "  Mistrust  "  and  "  Timorous  " 
— are  discovered  to  be  "chained"  when 
a  persevering  Christian  comes  up  to 
them. 


THE  ANGELS  OF   THE  SEPULCHRE.    1 45 

But  Help  is  not  the  only  angel  which 
God  sends  to  His  believing  ones.  There 
is  another  bright  spirit,  whom  we  never 
meet  more  surely  than  at  the  sepulchre 
where  our  treasures  sleep.  The  name  of 
this  angel  in  white  is  Hope.  She  sits  to- 
day'by  the  little  mounds  that  cover  the 
forms  we  loved.  When  I  go  out  to  the 
grassy  hill  in  Greenwood  where  my  dar- 
ling boy  has  lain  for  a  dozen  summers,  I 
meet  that  angel  at  the  tomb.  The  words 
she  chanted  when  the  casket  was  sealed  up 
and  hidden  beneath  the  earth  are  sounding 
still :  "  All  them  who  sleep  in  Jesus  will 
God  bring  with  Him."  As  Mary  Magda- 
lene saw  the  angel  through  her  tears,  so 
the  believer  sees  through  tears  of  sorrow  the 
white-robed  angel  of  Hope.  A  clear-eyed 
angel  is  she,  and  one  that  excels  in  strength. 
She  hath  other  ministering  spirits  with  her 
to  minister  to  the  heirs  of  salvation.  Pa- 
tience attends  her,  and  Prayer  with  a  cas- 
ket of  promises,  and  Peace  with  her  serene 

10 


146    THE  ANGELS  OP   THE  SEPULCHRE, 

countenance,  and  Love,  which  is  stronger 
than  death. 

The  tomb  in  Joseph's  garden  was  filled 
with  light  where  the  two  bright  spirits  sat, 
'*  the  one  at  the  head  and  the  other  at  the 
feet  where  the  body  of  Jesus  had  lain." 
Even  so  do  the  angels  of  Divine  help  and 
hope   turn   the    midnight   of   sorrow    into 
dawn.     To   the   eye  of  unbelief  the  grave 
is  a  ghostly  spot.     Faith  peoples    **  God's 
acre  "  with  angels,  and   fills   the  air   with 
prophetic    songs  of    praise.     And  what  a 
scene    will   the    Greenwoods    and     Mount 
■  Auburns  presejit  when  the  angelic  legions 
shall    roll    away   every    stone,  and   gather 
Christ's  chosen  ones  to  meet  Him  on  His 
throne ! 

"  Lo !  the  seal  of  death  is  breaking  ! 
Those  who  slept  its  sleep  are  waking ; 

Heaven  opes  its  portals  fair. 
Hark !  the  harps  of  God  are  ringing  ! 
Hark  !  the  seraphs'  hymns  are  flinging 
Music  on  immortal  air  !  " 


THE  NIGHT-LODGING  AND  THE 
DAY-DAWN. 


WHEN  travelling  in  Palestine  last 
year  we  occasionally  came  upon  a 
wayside  khan.  Before  one  of  those  rude 
inns  the  traveller  halts  at  the  sunset,  feeds 
his  beasts,  stretches  himself  on  the  floor, 
and  in  the  cool  dawn  of  the  next  morning 
saddles  his  horse  or  mule  and  pushes  on 
his  journey.  This  familiar  custom  was  in 
the  Psalmist's  mind  when  he  wrote,  "  Weep- 
ing may  endure  for  a  night,  but  joy  cometh 
in  the  morning."  This  verse,  literally  trans- 
lated, would  read,  "  In  the  evening  sorrow 
lodgeth,  and  at  the  day-dawn  cometh  shout- 
ing." Sorrow  is  represented  as  only  a 
lodger  for  a  night,  to  be  succeeded  by  joy 
at  the  sunrising. 


148  THE  NIGHT-LODGING 

This  is  a  truthful  picture  of  most  frequent 
experiences ;  it  is  full  of  comfort  to  God's 
people,  and  it  points  on  to  the  glorious 
dawn  of  heaven's  eternal  day,  when  the 
night-watch  of  Hfe  is  over.  Sorrow  is  often 
the  precursor  of  joy;  sometimes  it  is  so 
needful,  that  unless  we  endure  the  one  we 
cannot  have  the  other.  Some  of  us  have 
known  what  it  is  to  have  severe  sickness 
lodge  in  our  bodily  tent,  when  every  nerve 
became  a  tormentor  and  every  muscle  a 
highway  for  pain  to  course  over.  We  lay 
on  our  beds  conquered  and  helpless.  But 
the  longest  night  has  its  dawn.  At  length 
returning  health  began  to  steal  in  upon  us, 
like  the  earliest  gleams  of  morning  light 
through  the  window  shutters.  Never  did 
food  taste  so  delicious  as  the  first  meal  of 
which  we  partook  at  our  own  table.  Never 
did  the  sunbeams  fall  so  sweet  and  golden 
as  on  that  first  Sabbath  when  we  ventured 
out  to  church ;  and  no  discourse  ever  tasted 
so  like  heavenly  manna  as  the  one  our  pas- 


AND   THE  DAY-DAWN.  1 49 

tor  poured  into  our  hungry  ears  that  day. 
We  sang  the  thirtieth  psalm  with  melody 
in  the  heart,  and  no  verse  more  gratefully 
than  this  one,  "  Sorrow  may  endure  for  a 
night,  but  joy  cometh  in  the  morning." 

Many  a  night  of  hard  toil  has  been  fol- 
lowed by  the  longed-for  dawn  of  success. 
When  we  were  weary  with  the  rowing  the 
blessed  Master  came  to  us  on  the  waves 
and  cried  out,  "Be  of  good  cheer;  it  is  I." 
As  soon  as  He  entered  the  boat  the  skies 
lighted  up,  and  presently  the  boat  was  in 
the  harbor.  The  history  of  every  discov- 
ery, of  every  enterprise  of  benevolence, 
of  every  Christian  reform,  is  the  history  of 
toil  and  watching  through  long  discourage- 
ments. I  love  to  read  the  narrative  of  Pal- 
issy  the  potter,  of  his  painful  struggles  with 
adversity,  of  his  gropings  after  the  scien- 
tific truth  he  was  seeking,  and  of  his  final 
victory.  Sorrow  and  poverty  and  toil 
lodged  with  that  brave  spirit  for  many  a 
weary  month,  but  at  length  came  singing 


150  THE  NIGHT-LODGING 

and  shouting.  All  Galileos  and  Keplers 
and  Newtons  have  had  this  experience. 
All  the  Luthers  and  Wesleys  who  have 
pioneered  great  reformations,  and  all  the 
missionaries  of  Christ  who  have  ever  in- 
vaded the  darkness  of  paganism,  have  had" 
to  endure  night-work  and  watching  before 
the  hand  of  God  opened  to  them  the  gates  of 
the  *'  dayspring  from  on  high."  This  is  the 
lesson  to  be  learned  by  us  pastors,  by  the 
teachers  in  mission-schools,  by  colporteurs, 
and  by  every  toiler  for  Christ  and  souls. 
*'We  have  toiled  all  night,  and  caught 
nothing,"  exclaimed  the  tired  and  hungry 
disciples.  Then  in  the  early  gray  of  t'he 
daybreak  they  espied  their  Master  on  the 
beach ;  the  net  is  cast  on  the  right  side  of 
the  ship,  and  it  swarms  with  fish  enough 
to  break  its  meshes.  Nearly  every  revival 
season  I  have  ever  passed  through  in  my 
church  has  been  on  this  same  fashion. 
Difficulties  and  discouragements  have  sent 
us  to  our  knees,  and  then  we  have  been 


AND   THE  DAY-DAWN,  151 

surprised  by  the  advent  of  the  Master  in 
great  power  and  blessing.  God  tests  His 
people  before  He  blesses  them.  The  night 
is  mother  of  the  day;  trust  through  the 
dark  brings  triumph  in  the  dawn. 

Precisely  similar  are  the  deepest  and 
richest  experiences  of  many  a  regenerated 
soul.  The  sorrows  of  penitence  were  the 
precursors  of  the  joys  of  pardon.  I  have 
known  a  convicted  sinner  to  endure  the 
pangs  of  contrition  when  no  small  tempest 
lay  upon  him  and  no  sun  or  stars  appeared  ; 
his  soul  was  in  the  horror  of  a  great  dark- 
ness. To  such  distressed  hearts  God  often 
sends  a  flood  of  relief  and  joy  as  sudden 
as  the  light  that  poured  on  Saul  of  Tarsus. 
To  others  conversion  has  been  a  slower, 
gentler  process.  Like  the  gradual  com- 
ing of  the  dawn,  —  as  we  have  witnessed  it 
from  a  railway  car  or  from  a  mountain 
summit,  —  darkness  has  slowly  given  place 
to  steel-gray,  and  the  steel-gray  to  silver, 
the  silver  has  reddened  into  ruddy  gold,  and 


152  THE  NIGHT-LODGING 

all  has  developed  so  quietly  and  steadily 
that  we  could  not  fix  the  precise  birth- 
moment  of  the  day.  Thousands  of  true 
Christians  cannot  fix  the  precise  date  of 
their  conversion.  But  the  dawn  of  hope 
and  new  life  really  begins  when  the  mercy 
of  Jesus  Christ  is  rightly  apprehended,  and 
the  soul  begins  to  see  and  to  follow  Him. 

"  'T  is  midnight  with  my  soul  till  He, 
Bright  Morning  Star,  bids  darkness  flee." 

Those  who  suffer  the  sharpest  sorrow 
for  their  own  sinfulness  and  guilt,  and  are 
brought  into  the  deepest  self-loathing,  are 
commonly  those  who  are  the  most  thor- 
oughly converted.  The  height  of  their 
joy  is  proportioned  to  the  depth  of  their 
distress.  Christ  is  all  the  more  precious 
to  them  for  having  painfully  felt  the  need 
of  Him.  The  dawn  of  their  new  hope 
has  been  unmistakably  from  heaven,  and 
their  after  pathway  has  shone  brighter  and 
brighter  to  the  perfect  day. 


AND    THE  DAY-DAWN.  1 53 

One  other  truth  —  the  most  ineffably  glo- 
rious of  all  —  is  illustrated  by  this  simile  of 
the  night-lodging  in  the  khan.  The  earth- 
ly life  of  God's  children  is  only  a  mere 
encampment  for  a  night.  To  many  are 
appointed  sleeplessness  and  tears.  Some- 
times through  poverty,  sometimes  through 
long  sickness,  sometimes  under  darkly 
mysterious  bereavements,  they  have  '*  wait- 
ed patiently  on  the  Lord  more  than  they 
that  watch  for  the  morning."  They  knew, 
that  the  dawn  of  heaven  lay  behind  the 
clouds,  and  they  held  out  in  confident 
expectation  of  it.  Paul  himself  had  such 
sharp  experiences  that  he  once  confessed 
that  he  had  ''  a  desire  to  break  camp  and  to 
be  with  Christ,  which  is  far  better."  A 
most  lovely  Christian,  whose  life  had  been 
consumed  by  a  slow  cancer,  went  home  to 
glory  a  few  days  ago.  While  the  poor  frail 
tent  of  the  body  was  decaying  by  inches, 
she  was  feasting  on  rapturous  glimpses  of 
heaven.     Through  the    long  weary   night 


154 


THE  NIGHT-LODGING,  ETC. 


pain  and  suffering  lodged  in  that  fluttering 
tent ;   but  at  length 

"  The  dawn  of  heaven  broke,  — 

The  summer  morn  she  sighed  for, 
The  fair,  sweet  morn  awoke." 


OUR  TWO   HOMES. 


nPHAT  beautiful  passage  in  the  fifth 
-*-  chapter  of  the  Second  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  according  to  Dean  Alford's  and 
Dr.  Samuel  Davidson's  happy  rendering, 
reads  about  as  follows  :  "  Being  always  con- 
fident, and  knowing  that  whilst  we  are  in  our 
home  in  the  body  we  are  away  from  our 
home  in  the  Lord.  For  we  walk  by  faith, 
not  by  appearance.  We  are  still  confident, 
and  well  content  rather  to  go  from  our 
home  in  the  body  and  to  come  to  our  home 
in  the  Lord." 

The  contrast  is  a  sharp  and  distinct  one 
between  oiir  two  homes.  In  the  first  verse 
of  this  chapter  Paul  speaks  of  our  present 
home  as  a  mere  ''tent "  ;  the  other  home  is 


156  OUR   TWO  HOMES. 

"  a  mansion  of  God  eternal  in  the  heavens." 
In  other  words,  my  soul  —  which  is  really 
myself —  has  two  homes :  one  of  them  is 
in  this  frail  and  flimsy  tent  which  I  call 
a  body,  and  the  other  is  in  that  enduring 
and  glorious  habitation  called  heaven.  A 
tent  is  the  most  transient  of  all  lodging- 
places.  It  is  pitched  to-day ;  to-morrow  its 
pins  are  pulled  up  and  the  canvas  is  carried 
away  to  some  other  spot,  leaving  only  the 
ashes  of  a  camp-fire.  What  a  vivid  picture 
is  this  of  the  frail  body  in  which  my  im- 
mortal soul  encamps  for  a  few  swift-flying 
years  !  Half  of  all  the  human  tents  do  not 
last  more  than  thirty  years ;  and  if  by  much 
mending  and  patching  they  are  made  to  last 
for  fourscore  years,  yet  they  easily  yield  to 
the  blast  of  death  and  fly  away.  Paul's  tent 
had  seen  some  rough  usage ;  it  was  so  mi- 
gratory and  so  drenched  with  storms,  and 
so  mauled  by  persecutions  and  scarred  with 
the  lash,  that  the  old  hero  who  lived  in  it 
longed  "  to  depart  and  to  be  with  Christ, 


OUR    TWO  HOMES.  1 57 

which  was  far  better."  He  was  constantly 
getting  homesick  for  his  Father's  house. 
A  happy  day  was  it  for  him  when  the  exe- 
cutioner's axe  clove  his  poor  old  leaky  tent 
in  twain,  and  suffered  his  heaven-bound 
spirit  to  fly  away  and  be  at  rest. 

A  thousand  things,  speculative  and  poeti- 
cal, have  been  written  in  regard  to  the 
Christian's  future  home.  The  Bible  says 
just  enough  to  rouse  our  curiosity  and  to 
stimulate  speculation,  but  not  enough  to 
spoil  the  sublime  mystery  which  overhangs 
it  like  a  cloud  of  glory.  A  few  things  seem 
to  my  own  mind  at  least  to  be  well  estab- 
lished. Heaven  is  a  place ;  it  is  not  a  mere 
state  or  condition  of  blissful  holiness.  A 
distinctly  bounded  place  of  abode  it  must 
be,  or  else  John's  view  of  it  from  Patmos 
was  an  idle  phantasm.  God's  Word  speaks 
of  it  as  a  "  city,"  and  as  filled  with  "  many 
mansions."  The  light  of  it  proceeds  from 
a  central  throne;  for  the  Lamb  in  the 
midst  of  the  throne  is  the  light  thereof    Its 


158  OUR   TWO  HOMES. 

pellucid  pavements  are  like  unto  fine  gold. 
The  music  of  its  praises  fell  upon  the  old 
apostle's  ear  with  such  a  sublime  roar  of 
melodies  that — likening  them  to  the  Medi- 
terranean's surf  dashing  upon  the  rocks 
of  Patmos — he  calls  them  ''the  sound 
of  many  waters."  Surrounding  this  vast 
scene  of  splendor  he  saw  something  which 
he  describes  as  walls  of  precious  stones, 
and  these  walls  were  pierced  with  gates 
of  pearl. 

There  is  something  beautifully  sugges- 
tive in  this  many-sidedness  of  heaven, 
with  gates  of  entrance  from  every  point 
of  the  compass.  It  emphasizes  the  catho- 
licity of  God's  house,  into  which  all  the 
redeemed  shall  enter,  from  all  parts  of  the 
globe,  and  with  their  varying  theological 
and  denominational  opinions.  All  shall 
come  in  through  Christ  Jesus,  and  yet 
through  many  gateways.  Thank  God,  no 
bigot  shall  be  able  to  bar  out  one  soul  that 
has  been  washed  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  ! 


OUR    TWO  HOMES.  I  59 

The  variety  of  "  fruits  "  on  the  tree  of  Hfe 
points  to  the  idea  of  satisfying  every  pos- 
sible taste  and  aspiration  of  God's  vast 
household  of  many  kindreds  and  tongues 
and  nations.  Why  surrender  the  view  of  a 
literal  home  of  the  redeemed  such  as  John 
has  described  to  us?  Why  volatilize  it  all 
away  into  the  thin  vapor  of  metaphor?  If 
John  did  not  see  what  he  described,  then 
he  saw  nothing  at  all ;  and  if  he  sav/  noth- 
ing real,  then  the  closing  visions  of  the 
Apocalypse  are  a  splendid  fog-bank.  For 
one,  I  prefer  to  hold  to  the  actual  words 
which  Revelation  gives  me,  and  if,  when  I 
get  there,  I  find  something  utterly  different, 
then  it  will  be  time  enough  to  make  the 
discovery.  In  the  mean  time  there  are 
millions  of  us  who  are  simple-hearted 
enough  to  fire  our  faith  by  singing  about 
those 

"  Bulwarks  with  salvation  strong, 
And  streets  of  shining  gold." 

That  our  heavenly  home  will  satisfy  our 


l6o  OUR   TWO  HOMES. 

fullest  social  longings,  we  cannot  doubt. 
No  one  need  complain  of  lack  of "  good 
society"  there.  Old  Dr.  Emmons  is  not 
the  only  Christian  who  has  fed  his  hopes 
of  "  a  good  talk  with  the  Apostle  Paul." 
Dr.  Guthrie  is  not  the  only  parent  who 
has  felt  assured  that  "his  little  Johnnie 
would  meet  him  inside  the  gate."  Many  a 
pastor  expects  to  find  his  converted  flock 
as  a  "  crown  of  rejoicing  to  him  in  that 
day."  The  recognition  of  friends  there 
cannot  possibly  be  a  question  of  doubt. 
No  barriers  of  caste  can  separate  those  who 
are  children  of  the  one  Father  and  dwell- 
ing in  the  same  household.  When  Cineas, 
the  ambassador  of  Pyrrhus,  came  back 
from  his  visit  to  Rome  in  the  days  of  her 
glory,  he  reported  to  his  sovereign  that  he 
had  seen  a  "  commonwealth  of  kings."  So 
will  it  be  in  heaven,  where  every  heir  of 
redeeming  grace  will  be  as  a  king  and 
priest  unto  God,  and  a  divine  adoption 
shall   make   every   one  a  member   of  the 


OUR    TWO   HOMES.  l6l 

royal  family.  What  a  comforting  thought 
it  is  that  we  shall  never  be  compelled  to 
pull  up  our  tent-poles  any  longer  in  quest 
of  a  pleasanter  home  !  Heaven  will  have  no 
"  moving-day."  No  longer  shall  we  dread 
to  be  pulled  away  from  associations  which 
we  love,  and  sent  off  into  strange  and 
uncongenial  places.  When  you  and  I, 
brother,  have  packed  up  at  the  tap  of 
death's  signal-bell,  we  shall  never  be 
obliged  to  change  our  quarters  again. 
There  is  a  delightful  permanence  in  that 
word,  "  Forever  with  the  Lord." 

The  leagues  to  that  home  are  few  and 
short.  Happy  is  that  child  of  Jesus  who  is 
always  listening  for  the  footfall  this  side  of 
the  golden  gate,  and  for  the  voice  of  invita- 
tion to  hurry  home.  A  true  life  is  just  a 
tarrying  in  the  tent  for  Christ  until  we  go 
into  the  mansion  with  Christ.  **  I  hope 
your  Master  has  gone  to  heaven,"  said  some 
one  to  a  slave  when  his  master  was  dead. 
''  I'se  afraid  he  has  not  gone  dare,"  replied 

II 


1 62  OUR   TWO  HOMES. 

Ben,  "  for  I  never  heard  him  speak  of  dat. 
When  he  go  to  de  North,  or  de  Virginny 
Springs,  he  always  be  gettin'  ready  for 
many  weeks.  I  never  see  him  gettin'  ready 
for  goin'  to  heaven."  The  simple  negro's 
words  are  a  test  and  an  admonition  for 
each  one  of  us.  For  let  us  be  assured  that 
not  one  of  us  will  ever  see  that  Home 
unless  we  are  made  ready  for  it  by  Christ 
Jesus. 


ASLEEP   IN  JESUS. 


"VJO  scriptural  description  of  death  is  so 
-^  ^  suggestive  and  so  consoling  as  that 
which  is  conveyed  by  the  familiar  word 
sleep.  It  recurs  often.  Stephen  the  mar- 
tyr breathes  his  sublime  prayer,  and  then 
"  he  fell  asleep."  Our  Lord  said  to  His 
disciples :  "  Our  friend  Lazarus  sleepeth  ; 
but  I  go  that  I  may  awake  him  out  ot 
sleep."  Paul,  in  that  transcendently  sub- 
lime chapter  on  the  resurrection,  treats 
death  as  but  the  transient  slumber  of  the 
body,  to  be  followed  by  the  glorious  awak- 
ening at  the  sound  of  the  last  trumpet. 
And  then  he  crowns  it  with  that  voice  of 
the  Divine  Spirit,  that  marvellous  utterance 
which  has  been  said  and  sobbed  and  sung 


164  ASLEEP  IN  JESUS. 

in  so  many  a  house  of  bereavement:  "I 
would  not  have  you  to  be  ignorant  con- 
cerning them  which  are  asleep ;  for,  if  we 
believe  that  Jesus  died  and  rose  again,  even 
so  them  also  which  sleep  in  Jesus  will  God 
bring  with  Him."  No  three  words  are  in- 
scribed on  more  tombs  or  on  more  hearts 
than  these,  "  Asleep  in  Jesus." 

These  declarations  of  God's  Word  de- 
scribe death  as  simply  the  temporary  sus- 
pension of  bodily  activities.  Not  a  hint  is 
given  of  a  total  end,  an  extinction,  or  an  an- 
nihilation. The  material  body  falls  asleep, 
the  immortal  spirit  being,  meanwhile,  in 
full  activity;  and  the  time  is  predicted 
when  the  body,  called  up  from  the  tomb, 
shall  reunite  with  the  deathless  spirit,  and 
the  man  shall  live  on  through  eternity. 
What  we  call  dying  is  only  a  momentary 
process.  It  is  a  flitting  of  the  immortal 
tenant  from  the  frail  tent  or  tabernacle, 
which  is  so  often  racked  with  pain  and 
waxes  old  into  decay.     Paul  calls  it  a  de- 


ASLEEP  IN  JESUS.  165 

parture:  ''To  depart  and  be  with  Christ." 
The  spiritual  tenant  shuts  up  the  windows 
of  the  earthly  house,  ere  he  departs;  he 
muffles  the  knocker  at  the  ear,  so  that  no 
sound  can  enter;  he  extinguishes  the  fire 
that  glows  about  the  heart,  stops  the  warm 
currents  that  flow  through  the  veins,  and 
leaves  the  deserted  house,  cold,  silent,  and 
motionless.  We,  the  survivors,  bend  over 
the  deserted  heart-house ;  but  there  is  nei- 
ther voice  nor  hearing.  We  kiss  the  brow, 
and  it  is  marble.  The  beloved  sleeper  is 
sleeping  a  sleep  that  thunders  or  earth- 
quake cannot  disturb.  But  what  is  there 
in  this  slumber  of  the  body  that  suggests 
any  fear  that  the  ethereal  essence  of  the 
spirit  has  become  extinct  or  even  sus- 
pended its  activities?  When  the  mother 
lays  her  darling  in  its  crib,  she  knows  that 
sleep  simply  means  rest,  refreshment,  and 
to-morrow  morning's  brighter  eye,  nimbler 
foot,  and  the  carol  of  a  lark  in  her  nursery. 
When  you  or  I  drop  off  into  the  repose  of 


1 66  ASLEEP  IN  JESUS. 

the  night,  we  understand  that  the  avenues 
of  the  five  bodily  senses  are  closed  for  a 
few  hours ;  but  the  mind  is,  meanwhile,  as 
busy  as  when  we  wake. 

Death  means  just  this ;  no  more  and  no 
less.  As  Maclaren  has  vigorously  said : 
"  Strip  the  man  of  the  disturbances  that 
come  from  a  fevered  body,  and  he  will 
have  a  calmer  soul.  Strip  him  of  the 
hindrances  which  come  from  a  body  that 
is  like  an  opaque  tower  around  his  spirit, 
with  only  a  narrow  crevice  here  and  a 
narrow  door  there  —  five  poor  senses  with 
which  he  is  connected  with  the  outer  uni- 
verse—  and,  surely,  the  spirit  will  have 
wider  avenues  out  to  God.  It  will  have 
larger  powers  of  reception,  because  it  has 
become  rid  of  the  closer  confinements  of 
the  fleshly  tabernacle.  They  who  die  in 
Jesus  live  a  larger,  fuller,  nobler  life,  by 
the  very  cessation  of  care,  change,  strife, 
and  struggle.  Above  all,  they  live  a  fuller, 
grander  life,  because  they  *  sleep  in  yesus ' 


ASLEEP  IN  JESUS.  1 6/ 

and  are  gathered  into  His  embrace,  and 
wake  with  Him,  clothed  with  white  robes, 
awaiting  the  adoption  —  to  wit,  the  redemp- 
tion of  the  body."  In  God's  good  time, 
the  slumbering  body  shall  be  resuscitated 
and  shall  be  fashioned  like  to  Christ's  glo- 
rious body  —  i.  e.,  it  shall  be  transformed 
into  a  condition  which  shall  meet  the  wants 
of  a  beatific  soul  in  its  celestial  dwelling- 
place.  Verily,  with  this  transcendent  blaze 
of  revelation  pouring  into  the  believer's 
death-chamber  and  his  tomb,  we  ought  not 
to  sorrow  as  they  that  have  no  hope. 

In  this  view  of  death  (which  is  God's  own 
view)  how  vivid  becomes  the  apostle's  ex- 
clamation :  '*  I  am  confident  and  willing 
rather  to  be  absent  from  the  body  and  to  be 
present  with  the  Lord."  Who  is  it  that  is 
to  be  absent?  I,  Paul  —  the  living  Paul  — 
I  can  be  entirely  quit  from  that  poor  taber- 
nacle of  flesh  and  yet  live  !  My  body  is  no 
more  me  than  the  corn-ship  was  me  when 
it  went  to  pieces  on  the  shore  of  Melita  and 


1 68  ASLEEP  IN  JESUS. 

I  escaped  safe  to  land.  Paul  was  entirely- 
willing  that  the  old,  scarred,  and  weary  body- 
might  be  put  to  sleep,  so  that  he  might  go 
home  and  be  present  with  his  Lord.  Then 
mortality  would  be  swallowed  up  of  life. 
Go  to  sleep,  poor,  old,  hard-worked  body, 
the  apostle  seems  to  say,  and  Jesus  will 
wake  thee  up  in  good  time,  and  thou  shalt 
be  made  like  to  the  body  of  His  glory,  ac- 
cording to  the  working  whereby  He  subdues 
all  things  unto  Himself. 

Let  us  not  be  charged  with  pushing  this 
Scripture  simile  too  far  when  we  hint  that 
it  illustrates  the  different  feelings  with 
which  different  persons  regard  the  act  of 
dying.  When  we  are  sleepy,  we  covet 
the  pillow  and  the  couch.  When  work  is 
to  be  done,  when  the  duties  of  the  day  are 
pressing  on  us,  then  we  are  not  only  broad 
awake,  but  the  more  aw^ke  the  better. 
Sleep  then  is  repulsive.  Even  so  do  we 
see  aged  servants  of  God,  who  have  fin- 
ished up  their  life-work,  and  many  a  suf- 


ASLEEP  IN  JESUS.  1 69 

ferlng  invalid,  racked  with  incurable  pains, 
who  honestly  long  to  die.  They  are  sleepy 
for  the  rest  of  the  grave  and  the  home 
beyond  it.  Yet  desire  for  death  is  not 
natural  to  the  young,  the  vigorous,  or  es- 
pecially to  the  servants  of  God  who  are 
most  intent  upon  their  high  calling.  These 
recoil  from  death,  however  saintly  or  spirit- 
ual they  may  be,  or  however  strong  be  their 
convictions  that  heaven  is  infinitely  better 
than  this  world.  It  is  not  merely  the  natu- 
ral shrinking  from  death  (which  the  man 
Christ  Jesus  felt  in  common  with  us),  but 
the  supreme  idea  of  serving  their  God  to 
the  utmost  possible  limit.  For  Christ  here, 
with  Christ  yonder,  is  the  highest  instinct 
of  the  Christian  heart.  The  noble  mission- 
ary, Judson,  phrased  it  happily  when  he 
said :  *'  I  am  not  tired  of  my  work,  neither 
am  I  tired  of  the  world ;  yet,  when  Christ 
calls  me  home,  I  shall  go  with  the  gladness 
of  a  boy  bounding  away  from  school."  He 
wanted  to  toil  for  souls  until  he  grew  sleepy y 


170  ASLEEP  IN  JESUS. 

and  then  he  wanted  to  lay  his  body  down 
to  rest  and  to  escape  into  glory. 

A  dying-bed  is  only  the  spot  where  the 
material  frame  falls  asleep.  Then  we  take 
up  the  slumbering  form  and  gently  bear  it 
to  its  narrow  bed  in  mother  earth.  They 
who  sleep  in  Him  shall  awake  to  be  forever 
with  their  Lord. 

On  this  tremendous  question  of  the  res- 
urrection of  our  loved  ones  and  our  reunion 
with  them  our  yearning  hearts  are  satisfied 
with  nothing  less  than  certainty.  Poetic 
fancies  are  gossamer;  analogies  from  the 
sprouting  of  seeds  and  bulbs,  probabilities, 
intuitions,  and  all  philosophizings  are  too 
shadowy  to  rear  a  solid  faith  on.  We  de- 
mand absolute  certainty,  and  there  are  just 
two  truths  that  can  give  it.  The  first  one 
is  the  actual  fact  of  Christ's  own  resurrec- 
tion from  the  death-slumber;  the  second 
is  His  omnipotent  assurance  that  all  they 
who  sleep  in  Him  shall  be  raised  up  and 
be  where  He  is  forevermore.     Those  early 


ASLEEP  IN  JESUS.  171 

Christians  were  wise  in  their  generation 
when  they  carved  on  the  tomb  of  the  mar- 
tyrs, **  In  yesii  Christo  obdonnivit,''  —  In 
Jesus  Christ  he  fell  asleep. 

The  fragrance  of  this  heavenly  line  per- 
fumes the  very  air  around  the  believer's 
resting-place.  Giving  to  the  Latin  word  its 
true  pronunciation,  there  is  sweet  melody, 
as  well  as  Heaven-sent  truth,  in  this  song 
of  the  sleepers  :  — 

"  Oh  !  precious  tale  of  triumph  this  ! 
And  martyr-blood  shed  to  achieve  it, 
Of  suffering  past  —  of  present  bliss. 

*  In  Jesn  Christo  obdormivit.' 

"  Of  cherished  dead  be  mine  the  trust. 
Thrice-blessed  solace  to  believe  it, 
That  I  can  utter  o'er  their  dust, 
'  Ijt  Jesu  Christo  obdormivit^ 

"  Now  to  my  loved  one's  grave  I  bring 
My  immortelle,  and  interweave  it 
With  God's  own  golden  lettering, 

*  In  Jesu  Christo  obdormivit?  " 


AN  AUTUMN   HOUR  IN   GREEN- 
WOOD. 


JEREMY  TAYLOR  has  quaintly  said 
*^  that  it  is  well  for  the  living  to  knock 
often  at  the  gates  of  the  grave.  This 
thought  is  ever  present  with  me  when  I 
thread  the  walks,  and  from  its  many  eleva- 
tions, look  down  into  the  embowered  and 
shaded  vales  of  Greenwood.  The  word 
"  cemetery  "  signifies  a  sleeping-place ;  and 
Greenwood  is  simply  a  vast  and  exquisitely 
beautiful  dormitory,  with  two  hundred  and 
forty  thousand  slumberers  in  their  narrow 
beds.  Some  rest  in  rosewood  beneath  roofs 
of  marble ;  some  are  laid  in  the  coarse  pine 
box  w^hich  scanty  poverty  hides  in  the 
bosom  of  mother  earth.     But  amid  all  the 


AN  A  UTUMN  HOUR  IN  GREENWOOD.     1 73 

miscellaneous  multitude,  the  Master  know- 
eth  them  that  are  His ;  them  also  which 
sleep  in  Jesus  will  God  bring  with  Him. 

Yesterday,  under  a  golden  October  sun- 
shine, I  climbed  Fountain  Hill,  and  stood 
amid  the  fragrant  flowers  which  adorn  the 
bedroom  in   which  my  own  beloved  ones 
sleep.     In  that  little  group  lies  the  beauti- 
ful and  accomplished  daughter,  who  van- 
ished from  the  home,  of  which  she  was  the 
joy  and  pride,  a  twelvemonth  ago.      Those 
lips  now  silent  never  spoke  a  disobedient 
word;    the  first   pang  she   caused   us  was 
when  her  own  noble  loving  heart  ceased  to 
beat.     Blessed   are   such  pure   hearts,    for 
they  shall  see  God.     Never  did   the  spot 
look  more  surpassingly  lovely,  with  its  im- 
mediate canopy  of  maples  tinged  with  their 
autumn  radiance,  and  the  distant  waters  of 
the   Bay   gilded  by  the  setting  sun.     The 
gentle  murmurs  of  the  neighboring  fountain 
seemed  like  a  requiem  over  the  slumberers 
that   were  lying   closely   around.     Across 


i  /4  AN  A  UTUMN  HO  UR 

the  carriage-drive  was  the  arched  Gothic 
tomb  in  memory  of  some  who  sank  with 
the  sinking  steamer  "  Arctic "  into  the 
ocean  depths.  Just  over  on  Oak  Ridge 
I  could  descry  the  bronze  bust  of  Hor- 
ace Greeley,  with  its  familiar  inscription, 
*'  Founder  of  the  New  York  Tribune." 
Several  friends  beside  whose  dying  beds 
I  had  once  stood,  were  lying  in  their  turf- 
covered  beds  beside  me.  And  all  over  the 
greensward,  and  through  the  crimsoning 
trees,  poured  the  bright  rays  of  the  au- 
tumnal sun,  kindling  the  flower-plats  into  a 
brilliant  glow,  and  making  the  very  atmos- 
phere glorious  as  with  the  anticipated  light 
of  the  better  world. 

Standing  in  that  august  light  I  said  to 
myself,  So  He  giveth  His  beloved  sleep ! 
Thanks  be  to  Him  that  He  takes  away  the 
terrors  of  death  from  His  own  redeemed 
ones  by  assuring  them  that  death  is  only  a 
temporary  suspension  of  bodily  activities, 
while  the  redeemed  and  immortal  spirit  has 


IN  GREENWOOD.  175 

"  departed  to  be  with  Christ,  which  is  far 
better."  Nor  shall  the  slumber  of  the  mor- 
tal frame  be  more  than  transient.  For  at 
the  voice  of  the  archangel's  trump  it  also 
shall  awake,  and  be  transformed  into  that 
"  spiritual  body  "  which  is  organized  for  the 
peculiar  atmosphere  and  activities  of  the 
heavenly  state.  Then  shall  Christ's  ran- 
somed ones,  in  their  normal  and  complete 
condition,  —  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  —  be 
forever  with  their  Lord. 

I  fed  my  faith  by  recalling  how  often 
God's  Word  pictures  the  act  of  dying  as  a 
falling  into  sleep.  I  recalled  the  expres- 
sion which  our  Lord  employed  over  the 
couch  of  Jairus's  daughter,  and  also  His 
memorable  words  on  the  road  to  Bethany, 
— ''  Our  friend  Lazarus  is  fallen  asleep,  but 
I  go  that  I  may  awake  him  out  of  sleep." 
When  Stephen  the  martyr  had  uttered  his 
last  testimony,  and  caught  his  first  glimpse 
of  the  celestial  spheres,  he  '*  fell  asleep." 
This  is  the  term  employed  in  that  magnifi- 


iy6  AN  AUTUMN  HOUR 

cent  chapter  to  the  Corinthians  on  the 
Resurrection,  —  a  chapter  whose  single  in- 
estimable preciousness  is  enough  to  war- 
rant a  revelation  from  heaven.  Jesus  the 
Conqueror  is  there  described  as  *'  the  first 
fruits"  —  the  earliest  harvest-sheaf —  ''  of 
them  that  are  asleep."  As  He  awakened 
His  slumbering  form  on  the  Easter-morn, 
so  shall  He  awaken  those  who  sleep  in 
Jesus  at  the  Resurrection  dawn. 

This  beautiful  and  comforting  concep- 
tion of  dying  has  entered  into  the  experi- 
ences of  multitudes  of  believers.  When 
the  great  church-historian  Neander  drew 
near  to  his  last  moment,  he  sweetly  said  to 
his  faithful  sister :  **  Hannchen,  I  am  weary ; 
let  us  go  home  ;  good-night !  "  One  of  the 
aged  veterans  of  the  New  York  pulpit  was 
heard  repeating  to  himself  the  simple  lines 
of  his  childhood,  as  he  was  departing:  — 

"  Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep, 
I  pray  thee,  Lord,  my  soul  to  keep." 

So  have  we   parents   stood   beside   our 


IN  GREENWOOD.  1 77 

darlings  and  watched  the  soft  dews  of  kind- 
ly slumber  steeping  the  tired  eyelids,  until 
there  was  no  longer  voice  nor  hearing. 
The  agony  would  have  been  insupportable, 
if  that  process  meant  extinction  and  re- 
morseless annihilation.  But  the  Son  of 
God  was  ever  saying  to  us,  "  Not  dead,  but 
sleeping:  them  which  sleep  in  Me,  will  I 
bring  with  Me,  that  where  I  am,  they  shall 
be  also."  Innumerable  mothers  have  stayed 
up  their  suffering  hearts  with  this  priceless 
consolation.  Somewhere  I  once  met  with 
the  following  lines,  which  set  forth,  touch- 
ingly,  a  mother's  caress  of  the  little  form 
that  is  growing  cold  in  her  arms :  — 

"  Still  she  keeps  rocking  him, 

Ever  caressing  him, 
Brushing  his  hair  from  his  colorless  brow; 

Softly  they  've  whispered  her, 

*  Life  has  gone  out  of  him  ; ' 
Gently  she  answers  —  *  how  still  he  is  now  !  * 

"  Still  she  keeps  rocking  him, 
As  though  she  would  shake  from  him 
The  cold  hand  of  death,  like  the  weights  from  his  eyes ; 

12 


178   AN  AUTUMN  HOUR  IN  GREENWOOD, 

Rocking  the  clay  of  him, 
"While  softly  the  soul  of  him 
Angels  are  rocking  far  up  in  the  skies." 

All  these  blessed  thoughts  of  the  tran- 
sient sleep  and  the  heavenly  waking,  came 
to  cheer  me  yesterday  as  I  stood  beside  the 
narrow  beds  covered  with  tuberoses  and 
geraniums.  The  setting  sun  shed  its  mel- 
low radiance  upon  green  turf,  and  marble 
tablets,  and  sparkling  fountain.  In  the  dis- 
tance was  the  placid  Bay  with  a  ship  or 
two  resting  at  anchor,  —  beautiful  emblems 
of  a  Christian  soul  whose  voyage  had  ended 
in  the  repose  of  the  desired  haven.  A  few 
birds  were  twittering  their  last  notes  ere 
they  dropped  to  their  perch.  The  air  was 
as  quiet  as  the  dear  sleepers  beside  me,  and 
as  I  turned  from  the  sacred  spot  of  their 
slumbers,  I  bade  them  as  of  old  ^^good- 
nighty  Beyond  these  nights  of  earth,  and 
the  last  night  also,  gleams  the  bright  ever- 
lasting hope  of  heaven's  **  good  morjiing!  " 


The  following  paragraph  from  the  "  New  York  Evan- 
gelist "will  explain  the  circumstances  under  which  this 
little  volume  was  prepared,  and  also  the  peculiar  sympa- 
thy which  the  author  has  with  all  those  who  are  seeking 
for  God's  light  on  dark  clouds  of  sorrow. 

DIED,  in  Brooklyn,  on  Friday  morning, 
Sept  30,  1 88 1,  Louise  Ledyard 
CUYLER,  the  second  daughter  of  Rev. 
Theodore  L.  and  Annie  E.  Cuyler. 

On  her  return  from  Narragansett  Pier  in 
August  she  was  taken  with  a  fever  which 
soon  developed  typhoid  symptoms.  After 
four  weeks  she  rallied,  and  appeared  to  be 
convalescent;  but  a  relapse  occurred  which 
baffled  the  skill  of  several  eminent  physi- 
cians, and  soon  proved  fatal.  During  her 
long  illness  she  sang  every  day  to  herself 
her  favorite  hymn,  **  Abide  with  me ;  fast 
falls  the  eventide."  It  was  an  early  *'  even- 
tide" for  a  beautiful  and  accomplished 
young  girl,  around  whom  clustered  such 


i8o 

fond  affections  and  the  highest  hopes.  The 
constant  calls  of  anxious  friends  at  her 
father's  door  for  five  weeks,  and  the  grief 
which  overspreads  the  congregation  and 
the  community,  attest  the  deep  hold  which 
this  lovely  daughter  had  laid  on  so  many 
hearts.  Her  characteristic  traits  were  per- 
fect simplicity  and  transparent  truthfulness, 
a  playful  humor,  and  at  the  same  time  a 
most  conscientious  obedience  to  her  par- 
ents and  to  the  commandments  of  her 
Saviour.  At  the  early  age  of  twenty-one, 
this  sweet  life,  which  gave  such  promise  of 
womanly  graces  and  usefulness,  has  passed 
into  the  life  of  the  better  world. 

"  Out  of  the  pain  of  night-watching  removed 
Into  the  sleep  that  God  gives  His  beloved, 
Into  the  dawn  of  a  glad  resurrection, 
Into  the  house  of  unbroken  affection, 
Into  the  joy  of  her  Lord  —  thence  confessing 
Death  in  disguise  is  His  angel  in  blessing." 


BY    THE    REV.    T.    L.    CUTLER. 


I.  — POINTED   PAPERS    FOR  THE    CHRISTIAN 

LIFE.     i2mo $1.50 

**  Dr.  Cuyler  holds  steadily  the  position  which  he  reached  years 
ago  as  the  best  writer  of  pointed,  racy,  religious  articles  in  our  coun- 
try.   This  volume  contains  many  such  papers."  —  Presbyterian. 

II.  — THOUGHT-HIVES.    i2mo,  with  Portrait  .    .    $1.50 

"  Good-nature,  human  sympathy,  and  Christian  zeal  kindle  all 
Mr.  Cuyler's  pages  into  a  magnetic  warmth.  Genial,  open-hearted, 
and  fascinating  in  his  style,  both  spoken  and  written,  he  has  made 
for  himself  a  land-wide  reputation,  and  written  his  name  everywhere 
as  a  household  word."  —  New-York  Evangelist. 

III.  — FROM    THE    NILE    TO     NORWAY    AND 

HOMEWARD.    Illustrated $1.50 

"He  clothes  his  narratives  an  descriptions  in  graphic  and  pure 
English. ' '  —  Methodist  Quarterly. 

IV.— THE  EMPTY    CRIB.    Gilt  edges $1.00 

"  A  real  gem ;  the  outpouring  of  a  stricken  parent's  sorrows  into 
the  very  bosom  of  the  Saviour."  —  Christian  Advocate. 

v.  — GOD'S   LIGHT   ON    DARK    CLOUDS     .    .     $0.75 

VI.— THE    CEDAR    CHRISTIAN.    i8mo  .    .    .    .    $0.75 

VII.  —  STRAY   ARROWS $0.60 


ROBERT  CARTER  A^^D  BROTHERS, 
NEW  YORK. 


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